>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made last August in Dallas, Texas, where Ice was holding a recruiting event.

Afghan war veteran Laura Jedeed was curious, not because she wanted to join Ice as a freelance journalist.

And with her Substack, she has made her feelings about Ice and about the Trump administration quite clear.

She has called Ice America's Gestapo in waiting.

What she was curious about was just how rigorous the process was for joining Ice.

So she went out to an event center with room for several thousand people and found a small group of interested individuals and a line of just six people to wade through.

Writing for slate, she says, quote, the plan was never to become an I.C.E.

agent.

The plan when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an I.C.E.

agent who wouldn't be curious.

The event promised on the spot hiring for would be deportation.

Officers walk in, unemployed, walk out with a sweet 50 K signing bonus.

End quote.

Here's what Laura figured she would emphasize her deployments to Afghanistan in her resume, thinking that might be enough to get through round one before Ice eventually figured out that she is opposed to ice morally.

And by the way, she almost certainly failed her drug test.

What happened was something else entirely an interview that lasted all of six minutes.

No real background check to speak of, and then an offer to join.

She writes, quote, many of I.C.E.

's critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs.

January 6th insurrectionists, white nationalists, et cetera.

for domestic security force loyal to the president.

The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier.

I.S.I.S.

recruitment pushes so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who's joining the agency's ranks.

We are all collectively in the dark about whom the state is arming, tasking with the most sensitive of law enforcement work, and then sending into America's streets, end quote.

Judy's piece is getting a lot of attention now because the behavior of I.C.E.

officers in the past week, especially, has intensified, with many officers demonstrating that they don't respect basic American rights, the right to film police officers, the right to be in public spaces, the right to say rude things, whether or not those actions are wise at the moment, given the disposition of I.C.E.

officers, that's one thing.

Whether or not they are legal should not be in question this hour.

We welcome Laura Jedeed to discuss her experience, and we'll we'll discuss the expectations of law enforcement officers when they interact with the public.

A lot of our listeners have asked, you know, what's the protocol for firing into a moving vehicle?

What's the protocol?

When an officer discharges their weapon at all?

What is the expectation of finding medical help?

We'll talk about all of that with our two guests this hour.

Laura Jedeed, a freelance journalist and a writer at Firewalld.

Media.com.

Welcome, Laura.

Thanks for being on the program today.

>> Great to be here.

>> And Marv Stepherson is with us in studio.

Marv is a retired police sergeant, a military veteran, Monroe County Legislator for district number three.

As of last Friday.

Welcome back to the program, sir.

Thanks for being here.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> And Marv, remind people how long you served as a police officer.

>> 25 years.

>> 25 years as an officer.

How often?

Well, let me ask you this first.

Did you have to discharge your firearm ever in the course of your service?

>> Unfortunately, yes.

>> Okay.

And so we're going to talk about what that was like and what the protocols are there and what Marv is seeing.

Now let me start with Laura, who writes about her experience in slate.

We'll post the article in our show notes.

If you want to check it out, take us back to August and take us through why you did what you did and kind of set the scene there.

Laura.

>> Well it's basically exactly like you said.

I wanted to write an article about the process of hiring for Ice.

I thought it would be very interesting to go see what kinds of people were there, what the process is like, what kind of questions they asked.

All of it.

And I went, and I did that.

And as you said, there was a six minute interview.

They did not ask me really any questions at all, aside from basic biographical information.

They took my skills based essay, which was 100% accurate, and told me to wait for a response.

And I sat around a little bit, kind of took in the scenery.

I write about some of that in the article, and then I went home and I assumed that would be the end of it.

so I wasn't looking for a tentative offer, which I received a few days later, I missed it.

It sank to the bottom of my inbox, which means that I didn't fill out any of the forms that came with that email.

I didn't accept the tentative offer.

I didn't fill out my background check paperwork.

I didn't fill out my affidavit saying I'd never committed any domestic violence crimes.

None of it.

It just it just went to the bottom of my inbox a few weeks later.

A couple of weeks later, I got an email from LabCorp saying I wanted me to take a drug test.

Now, cannabis is legal in New York City.

I had partaken six days before the test, but I figured, you know, why not?

I can waste some advice, money or, you know, who knows?

So I went and I did the drug test, and nine days after that, I was curious about whether that result had come in.

I hadn't heard anything I assumed I would hear when I failed.

So I logged into the hiring portal, and what I found was that it had listed me as having a final job offer.

It listed me as having accepted the final job offer.

It listed my background check as completed three days in the future from when I was looking at this, and it said that I had an entrance on duty date of September 30th, which was three days before I was looking at it.

all that was left for me to do was to accept that offer.

And of course I went ahead and declined it.

I don't really want to be part of America's Gestapo, and I'm shocked that somebody as googleable as I am was able to get through the entire process.

>> So you didn't take a $50,000 signing bonus?

Laura.

>> I didn't, you know.

>> Okay, so let me then address a couple of other points here that, you know, your article hits and it kind of goes pretty viral pretty fast.

And already there are critics who are saying, well, look, first of all, shouldn't this be viewed as a good thing that for those who viewed the hiring of I.C.E.

officers as purely ideological, shouldn't this be viewed as.

Yeah, they're checking people out, but they're okay with people with different viewpoints.

And it's not just one thing.

It's not just a security force for the president.

>> Yeah, I'm fascinated by this.

there's been a few copes, and that's definitely one that we saw right off the bat.

first of all, the fact that the background check wasn't completed but was listed as completed is concerning that the point is that I got hired as a lefty journalist.

That's very funny, but it's not the point.

The point is that they're not checking.

The point is, they didn't do a background check.

They didn't know who I was.

Also, I'm just going to point this out.

If I was applying for a job at McDonald's and they looked me up and they saw that my social media was entirely me talking badly about McDonald's, they wouldn't hire me.

That's not a thing that happens.

And anyone who's applied for a corporate job knows that they will check your social media.

Anyone who's been on a Tinder date knows that you look up your your potential partner online, and they didn't even do that.

So again, the concern isn't that they hired me personally.

The concern is they don't seem to be vetting anybody.

>> Now, what about the contention that I saw some engaging with you on social media that, you know, look, you would never have handled their fitness requirements as an Afghan war vet?

>> You know, I gotta say, I mean, you know, I got through airborne school, I did my two deployments with the 82nd, but 22 push ups in a row, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm if I'm capable of it.

They're probably right.

Honestly.

>> did you did you find at the event itself?

Let's go back to the hiring event in August.

Did you find anything that surprised you?

The piece kind of indicated that you thought it might be packed, and instead it wasn't.

So take me through what you saw and what was outside of your expectations.

>> Yeah.

So I definitely expected because this was in the Arlington Esports Arena, which is a pretty big venue, and we had to sign up for a time slot, which suggests that they were expecting to be mobbed.

And so I got there with the expectation that I would stand in line.

I did not there was no line at security.

There was no line to hand my Eventbrite time slot ticket there.

Very professional.

there was a line of six people to wait for the actual interview, and there were zero people waiting to speak to an I.C.E.

officer, which I want to emphasize was not part of the hiring process.

That was an optional thing that I did, because I was curious and you were allowed to, but a lot of other people didn't seem very curious.

It seemed like a really incurious sponge.

Honestly, when there was a Q&A session a little bit later, after I got through with all that I am the only person who asked a question about the actual work.

I asked about concerns over doxing.

Everyone else either asked about stuff like work life balance, or very specifically about training academy.

It's just not a very inquisitive bunch.

It seemed a demographics were interesting as well.

It won't surprise anyone to learn that it was almost entirely male.

there were about an equal number of Hispanic people and white people, I would say, which I did find very interesting.

>> So again, listeners, if you want to check out Laura's piece, we'll post it in our our show notes.

And if you've got questions comments throughout this hour we can take your comments and questions at 844295 talk.

It's toll free.

8442958255263 WXXI.

If you're in Rochester 2639994, you can email the program Connections at wxxi.org.

And if you're watching on the YouTube channel for WXXI News, you can join the chat there.

So Marv Stepherson when you became a police officer, was there a background check on you?

>> Absolutely.

>> I mean, it was it was look, as you mentioned, it was a few years back here, three decades plus or right around there ago.

>> Yeah.

We're going back.

>> But what was the process like for you?

What do you think the process should be for hiring officers who are armed?

>> so I would say that what I remember again, you had, you know, taking the test, you had the, the psychological written, you had the psychological where you went in with a physician clinician in that field.

it was a home visit.

they talked with, you know, previous employers, your teachers in high school, college, if you went they really dug deep into not just the professional, but the personal.

They talked to your neighbors, talked to your family members, and then I worked in background and recruitment for a little bit during that time.

So I got to see what I actually went through getting hired myself.

And so for, you know, the fact of looking up and looking at the push that Laura was talking about with the Ice recruitment it reminded me of when I went into the Marine Corps and I knew that they were really trying to bring in as many Marines and infantry as possible.

So the incentive for the recruiters was to get everybody to try and go into the infantry field rather than other areas.

And my recruiter didn't, honor what I was looking for, which was to go into a computer background and instead left my contract open, which automatically put me into the infantry field.

And so, you know, it's those little bitty nuances that can, you know, cut corners, so to speak, and put people in compromised positions.

I'm thinking that with Ice, you got the same individuals who may be trying to meet this goal.

and so they're either not making all the phone calls they need to make or they might not you know regard everything they find in the person's file, like Laura was mentioning.

You know, you go on your social media and you see some things and you might overlook it, because, again, it's not objective, it's subjective.

So if your recruiter, you know, is leaning towards, hey, I don't care about this person's political position, we need to fill that seat.

They they may cut that that corner.

And that's that's where it becomes problematic.

>> Yeah.

And so I'm also thinking, Marv of the Rochester Police Department currently being, you know, roughly 100 officers behind and everything.

We've we have talked to the RPD about with Greg Bellow and many others from the department over the last couple of years, is they are aggressively looking to increase the ranks.

They are also very judiciously looking to increase the ranks with the right people.

And they will they will tell you that.

And there's nothing that indicates that.

They don't believe that.

So what is going on here with Ice?

Do you look at this and and not just Laura's story, but do you see the behavior that we are starting to see in the last week?

And as a former officer yourself, are you are you alarmed?

>> so to answer the last question, first, I am alarmed.

I have several conversations with retired law enforcement, with active law enforcement that, you know, they're seeing these behaviors of these federal law enforcement officers.

So, again, I spent 23, say, 28 years, but only counted 23 years in Coast Guard, which is under the same office housing as Ice.

You know, the Department of Homeland Security.

And I know that their training isn't the training that we as street officers received.

You know, there's a baseline where they go to Fletc, which is the federal law enforcement training center in Georgia, and they'll get, like, your basic concepts of law enforcement.

But the actual areas like domestic how do you handle domestic disputes?

Traffic stops.

just inter inter interdiction as far as stepping out with persons on the street, those types of encounters aren't covered in the training that they're receiving.

But yet now they're thrust into a role that will put them in those very same, you know, in interactions.

So when I see the clips or I see the different social media or even mainstream media examples of what's happening or real time what's happening, and you can see where nope, that's not a training tactic that that's that's not something that looks like law enforcement training.

the uniform or the lack of uniformity in uniforms being able to identify wearing masks, all these things go against everything that we learned or that we trained or we had policy wise.

And so that's really problematic because now I'm thinking it's putting real street cops in jeopardy when they're out here doing those types of things.

>> I have heard privately, I don't want to speak out of school.

I have heard privately from a number of police officers, not I.C.E.

officers, police officers.

>> And they have a range of political views, but certainly not all in the left who have been disturbed by some of the actions of I.C.E.

officers.

But they're not talking to us publicly, I understand that, yeah, but I understand your point, Marv, that this puts off regular police officers.

Perhaps, you know, in a hard spot, too, because this starts coloring the entire profession of of armed officers.

And an I.C.E.

officer is not a police officer.

It's a different job.

Yes.

So let me ask Laura a couple questions, and then we're going to talk to to Marv in a moment about protocols that, you know, frankly, I think a lot of people have questions about what is supposed to happen if you discharge your firearm.

But, you know, Laura, Marv is talking about the kinds of training, the kinds of expectations on officers and what we as Americans ought to expect officers to be trained in before they're out on the streets here.

I suspect you went into this process with Ice, thinking that there wasn't going to be a rigorous process, and it seems like it was even less so than you expected.

Is that a fair characterization?

>> That's fair.

Yes.

I expected to get through that first round.

and I didn't expect it to be on the spot.

Hiring implies a pretty expedited hiring process.

I just never in my wildest dreams imagined it would go as far as it did.

And I just I wanted to bring up something else that I should have brought up earlier.

When you asked about the idea, like, oh, it's good they hired you.

You have diverse opinions.

So are the people who oppose Ice, domestic terrorists or not?

Are the people in the media who allegedly support this stuff?

Are we domestic terrorists or are we good hires for Ice?

Because it can't be both.

It can be neither, but it can't be both.

And it's just it's astounding.

>> Yeah.

You know, I mean, I, I got to wonder, Marv, when you are trained as an officer, as a police officer, again, not an I.C.E.

officer.

Right.

But do you know by the time that you get a badge, by the time you go out on your first shift, not in training, on the job?

Do you know that people are allowed to say mean things to you?

And you know that is not a crime?

Do you know, especially now?

I mean, again, Marv, Marv was a police officer before everyone had a camera in their pocket.

But do you know that people are allowed to film you, that people are allowed to be in public spaces?

And I mean, do you think officers are trained well in those regards, at least in police departments?

>> Yeah.

So I do think that the officers, you know get the necessary training, talking about the street officers in that area, they always tell you, when I first came on, I remember saying, you have to have a thick skin, right?

You know that you're you're not getting the invitation to the barbecue.

You know, if you get called, if you get called there, you usually telling them to turn the music down or shut the party down altogether.

Right?

So it's not like we're the firefighters wherein, you know, it's they love everybody that that wears the the big boots and the hard hat.

Right.

We we're often asked to do things that go against people's comforts in their home.

and.

>> People are screaming at you.

>> They're yelling, so you're not it's it's not personal.

It's business.

And you're trying to honor someone's piece that's being disturbed because that's part of your, you know, your your job.

And so what you do is you try to go in there and explain to the neighbor saying, hey, look, I understand this is a celebratory event, but it's at a certain hour, an hour we're in.

It's it's gone beyond reason.

If you can't bring it down low enough, wherein you don't impose upon your neighbors who you shouldn't want to because they're your neighbors, right?

You're using these types of ways of speaking with them that de-escalates, but also puts them in, in a, in a position wherein it's on them and not the officer.

I'm not telling you what to do.

I'm telling you what might be the best, you know position to place yourself in.

>> But what you're describing is de-escalation.

It's taking the heat down.

It's not taking insults personally.

It's not being on a hair trigger.

It's not viewing a person, as you know, sort of your subject, that or your property to kind of move around.

Right?

You're trying to bring the temperature down in those situations.

>> Absolutely.

>> And at the moment, my hope is I think Laura wrote, Laura, did I get this right?

There were 10,000 I.C.E.

agents previously, and they've got 12,000 new recruits this year.

They've effectively doubled.

Plus, is that correct?

Am I remembering your piece correctly?

Yes.

Okay.

>> 120% increase over the year.

They bragged about it as though that's not the sign of a culture in trouble.

>> Okay, well, so granted.

So there's 20,000 plus Ice officers on the street, and I would like to believe that the social media videos do not represent all the stuff we're ice agents are smacking phones out of people's hands, pushing people into the street, one where they plowed somebody's car into the center of traffic because they were angry.

I want to believe that's not everybody.

And and I think it's always good to give grace where you can give grace.

>> Right.

>> And I know police get frustrated when when an officer acts out of line.

And then that video goes viral.

And then you'll often hear officers tell, they tell us like, you know, that's not all of us.

Like, show some grace.

I know you've made that point to show grace, right?

But what you are describing with de-escalation is not what I see in these videos.

I see emotional reactions.

I see the type of people, or at least the type of emotional responses that indicate maybe the last person I would want to be armed in a situation.

And that's what scares me the most right now, because what we've seen is probably not going to be the worst of it.

If that continues.

And I want to know what you see as a as a former officer yourself and someone who teaches and trains others, right?

Whether it's the Renee Good story or others, what are you seeing in in terms of the behavior of officers right now?

>> So, so for someone who who was a trainer for 20 of the 25 years, both in firearms and defensive tactics, so it wasn't just being able to shoot the gun, but also how do you handle yourself in protecting yourself or another person?

verbal is a huge part of that.

Or the nonverbal cues.

And so when I look at something like that, I see the lack of that training.

You know, you have officers who will have those visceral moments that that are trained in, in de-escalation that will have a bad moment.

And, and react to a verbal insult.

Right.

I always said to my, my officers when I was a sergeant, I said, we take verbal abuse, not physical.

Right.

If somebody puts hands on you, then you got to protect yourself.

But if they say things to you, it's in one ear and out the other.

And remember your training.

It's not about you.

It's kind of like the journalist, right?

We don't put ourselves in the story type of thing.

It's the same thing with law enforcement.

You you're there to find out what exactly is the disconnect between this individual and that individual, or to investigate an incident, a crime.

And so when I see these types of incidents with ice clashes with the, with the community, one, I know that they're operating outside of their norm.

They're operating outside their training because it's it's, you know, relevant or not relevant.

It's it's obvious.

That's what I'm looking for.

in what you see in real time on the camera, you know, with, with the, the verb, the verbal outburst, the hands on, even just the grabbing.

It's like with with physical force.

There's a use of force continuum.

Right.

So you go from officer presence to the verbal commands to the hands on wherein it's a guided or suggested, you know, by, by touch.

And then if you have to go into the strike or the joint manipulation, it's because now there is a level of custody that has become from reasonable suspicion to probable cause to actual arrest.

and then the less lethal and then lethal.

So you have these different steps that you can start at any one point.

And your goal is always to go down.

You go one level up to bring it down.

So to see these encounters where they're the ones that become the primary aggressor.

>>, and the escalator.

>> And the escalator of it, it speaks against the policy that majority of the police departments teach.

and if I had to interject, this other thought is that you have to remember that a lot of departments across the country, not all like Rochester Police Department, some of these are right to work states where they hire you.

You may raise your hand, you may have some training.

all training is not universal.

And some of these departments, you have to wonder, you know, where are these folk trained and how much training they receive, let alone with ice.

Who's doing this type of work with very little to no training in that area.

>> So one other point for both of you on this matter, when Renee Good was killed within hours, the Vice President of the United States was calling her a terrorist and was calling the shooter a hero and a patriot.

The Department of Homeland Security director was saying that Renee Good was trying to use her car as a missile to not only impede, but to kill I.C.E.

officers.

We know that is obviously not true.

And what has happened in the days since is you've seen President Trump get together with the New York Times, watch the video, and you saw his reaction, which kind of betrayed a whoa, like kind of seeing it for the first time.

And it wasn't a case where someone was trying to run down someone with a car.

but he still hedges.

And then last night, the president of the United States was talking to the lead anchor of CBS News and CBS News told President Trump, hey, we've been talking to Renee Good dad, who is a Trump supporter.

He's a fan of yours, but he's devastated over this.

And he hears you calling his daughter a terrorist.

And you can see President Trump soften a little bit because he likes hearing when people support him.

But he still says, well, yeah, but she was saying, you know, she was doing some she was being really tough on our officers.

and he has said that when asked if she deserved to be shot and killed, that, you know, that they were saying some nasty things and that I.C.E.

officers don't deserve to take that kind of abuse.

So it's been a shift from she's a domestic terrorist to, well, she was saying some rough things, as if being being disrespectful in the eyes of, of the law merits a death sentence.

And Marv, when I hear that, I'm I'm taken aback.

Yeah.

I don't hear the president saying I viewed those videos.

Now, we took our time and I'm still concluding that that officer was reasonably justified in thinking he was about to die if he didn't discharge his weapon in a moving car, and we're going to back him.

He's saying she was being kind of rough and rude.

>>, right?

>> And that is what grabs me.

>> Yeah.

>> What do you hear when you hear that?

>> So I mean, the, the the folk or the individuals, the political representatives that you identified in their statements?

and none of it was evidence based.

so I'm not surprised at their response because their, their alignment to their political agenda is what is most important to them.

It's not the humanity.

It's not due process.

I mean, that's why so many things that they're they're endorsing you know, for, for the average citizen, especially for Renee Good father, you know, I can't even imagine being the the father of three, two daughters, one, one son.

to to turn on the TV and have someone make that statement.

And you haven't gone through the investigation, like, show where my daughter is, has had some type of rhetoric that is politically driven, you know, that would that would even put a label on her as a terrorist, right?

She she's just an individual who believes that people deserve due process.

People deserve to have their person, be safe if you're accused of violating a policy of immigration then take me through the rigors of how do I get here?

to be legal status or how do I get processed out, you know, but to be snatched up, you know, taken from your family without any alert of where they are and how their safety is and to have his daughter, who simply was in the roadway where she has a right to be as a U.S.

citizen and then to try to drive away from a threatening situation and to be shot and killed, you know, that that's devastating.

And as one who watched the video, unfortunately, several times, you know, you see the tires of the the wheel of the vehicle turning away from the shoulder that vehicles intent was not to drive into.

The officer who both the one reaching for the door and the other one who shot and standing in front of the vehicle, placed himself into that position.

And it's telling you an use of force that you you take a position of cover to engage with deadly force.

You you get yourself out of the path.

Even if you were hand to hand, they always tell you to get.

And they being the the instructors, get offline.

If a person is is going to get engage you with a with a punch or a kick, you step offline to avoid the strike and then use the force necessary to subdue that individual.

So to see this person stand in front of the vehicle, almost point blank range, you know you have to ask yourself when they were, when and if they do go through the process of evaluating this, this this deadly force encounter that the questions of this officer's actions putting themselves in the way of harm is not going to justify them taking deadly force.

They should have removed themselves from that.

>> Laura, when the president talks about she was really rough on the ice.

Officers, what do you hear?

>> well, I hear that disrespect is a capital offense, according to Trump.

And I would like to point out that there is not a shift away from this idea that she's a domestic terrorist.

They are prosecuting her wife right now.

They are looking into the people that she associated with the idea that watching ice and alerting people to I.S.I.S.

presence and filming ice, which are all constitutionally protected activities, are capital offenses.

It's terrifying.

And look, I don't know if every single I.C.E.

officer is is doing the same things we're seeing on video.

We sure are seeing a lot of videos of them doing it.

And what we're also seeing is we're seeing Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, JD Vance, Donald Trump, as as you mentioned, all sending the message that Jonathan Ross is the kind of I.C.E.

agent they want.

He's a hero.

He did what they want.

They continue to put out messages saying that there is no they fully back their agents in using this kind of force.

So anybody that isn't acting in this manner is actually not following the orders of their bosses.

I think we need to avoid trying to comfort ourselves with the idea that any of this is normal.

It's not.

>> When we come back from our only break, we've got some questions from the audience for Laura Jedeed freelance journalist who's joining us, she wrote about her experience applying to become an Ice agent.

She wrote about it for slate.

Marv Stepherson has some questions as well from the audience.

He's a retired police sergeant, military veteran in Monroe County, legislator for district number three.

We'll come right back on Connections coming up in our second hour, the remarkable story of a man who underwent 50 surgeries on his face before the age of 19.

Corey Taylor was born with craniofacial deformity.

And in a new documentary, he talks about what it's like to always be stared at, to always be looked at as different.

His search for a job, his search for love, and his search for belonging.

We'll talk about it next.

Our.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

All right.

Some feedback from listeners.

See why writes in to say Laura's piece is an excellent example of anecdotal evidence and experience.

That definitely raises many important questions worth further investigation, but the sample size is still only one.

What has been the experience at other hiring events and individual individuals applying for positions?

In other words, Laura, are you pretty confident that your experience is representative and have you heard from Ice?

Have you heard from anybody about this?

>> so I can't.

No, of course not.

This is absolutely a sample size of one.

And it's possible that my application specifically was a product of a glitch that affected only my application and no other applications.

I find that difficult to believe because my application was processed, along with many other people, in an expedited hiring process that involves several people who went to the same event.

So it is difficult for me to believe that I am the only person who had this happen to them.

Maybe that is the case.

I can't prove that it isn't, but Occam's Razor would suggest that's the least likely outcome.

the Department of Homeland Security has finally responded.

about an hour ago, saying that I was never offered a job at Ice that I received.

I might have received a tentative selection letter following my initial application.

That is not a job offer.

in response, I went ahead and just posted the screen grab I did of the ice hiring portal, where I click through and show that they did, in fact give me a final offer.

Again, maybe I'm the only person, but it seems worth investigating and it's odd that they're not more worried.

I would be worried.

>> All right let me get a phone call from Ingrid in Penfield.

Hey, Ingrid.

Go ahead.

>> Hey.

How are you?

I caught the show just because I'm driving.

Because, as usual, it infuriated me.

I am not so much calling about the ice hiring because I'm sure I would be biased.

And I appreciate the caller who even bothered to ask whether whether he or she thought Laura's experience was a one off.

It's not likely, is it?

I just want to know how you are discussing this without using the word misogyny.

Evan, how come I haven't heard the word?

I mean, do you know that misogyny is widespread and women are killed for it every day?

Probably every hour?

For all I know, every minute I'm going to go now because honestly, I'm just too I, I just I can't believe that you sound surprised that.

And you used the word respect.

You volunteered that word.

I'm just so tired of it.

>> I.

>> I the last part, I don't fully understand.

I'm looking around the country and Laura's experience indicates to me that we should not be surprised and we should be alarmed.

The reason we're having this conversation with a retired police officer and with a freelance journalist who who wrote this story, is so that we can better see how the process should be, how it's handled in different departments, and how it's being handled in Ice.

And that is informative of what we are seeing on the American streets right now.

I made it I think I made it very clear, Ingrid, whether or not you think it is wise right now or even safe to protest Ice, you have a right to do it.

You have a right to say mean things to a police officer.

They do not have a right to hurt you or shoot you for saying mean or perceived, mean or nasty things to them.

You have a right to take video of them, and there's a reason for that.

I mean, this is not only a right that you have, it's been protected in court.

So there's a real question about what happens next in courts, because we're going to have a slew of lawsuits against I.C.E.

officers, and I don't know how it's going to go.

I really don't I think there's a lot of questions about what is going to hold up in terms of American rights to protest, to be in public spaces, to observe police officers, et cetera.

Now, the word misogyny, I'm going to give Laura some time to talk about that, because I think it's a fair point, and I think it's a fair concern when you see, I mean, Laura mentioned almost all of the people applying for Ice that you saw Laura were male.

And in the interactions that you are seeing in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

I want to give you some time to respond to Ingrid's Point there.

Go ahead.

Laura.

>> Yeah.

No, I think misogyny is an appropriate word here.

I you we saw the video from Jonathan Ross's perspective, which was almost certainly leaked by him in an effort to exonerate him, which is fascinating.

But what you hear is Renee Good last words are, I am not mad at you with a with a condescending smile.

And then Ross or someone close to him.

His first words after her murder was effing B. and that is a woman I think recognized the sentiment of I've been embarrassed by a woman, and I must respond and make her smile.

Well, I think that is what happened here.

And if you look at the reaction online to that video, you have a lot of people who are basically saying that she deserved it for for being rude for for talking back.

This is I agree, there's a real element of misogyny here.

And it's it permeates things to the point where I think it doesn't always come up.

And there's a lot of other things to talk about.

So I'm not as angry as the caller that it hasn't come up, but I certainly will cosign that it's an issue here.

>> Yeah.

And so, Marv, let me ask you, as an officer who has had to discharge your weapon, now we're going to talk a little bit about what your experience was, but nobody has disputed that.

I've seen that it was Ross himself who said effing B after shooting a woman in the face three times and killing her.

Laura's point is to me, very, very hard to even argue.

Yes, you could say that Renee Good was being condescending or flippant when she said, I ain't mad at you, but she certainly wasn't threatening the officer and she certainly wasn't saying, you know, that she was going to hurt him.

She turned her wheel and tried to go.

>> Home.

>> And his response after shooting someone, not knowing if she was dead or even Savable was not, you know, okay, threat's been neutralized.

The car is now out of control.

Let's make sure it doesn't hit anybody else.

Let's get to her.

Let's get medical help for her.

It was effing b. That woman is now maybe dead to him.

And it kind of sounded like he thought she deserved.

>> It.

>> For being disrespectful to him.

That is really.

That was.

I couldn't.

They released that video that he shot.

It wasn't body cam video.

It was him shooting with his cell phone.

>> Right?

>> As if it was exonerating.

And I heard him utter that and I'm going, oh, my God.

So what's the protocol?

You have had to discharge your weapon as a police officer.

You served 25 years as an officer, never had to discharge it at a person.

Is that correct?

>> Right.

>> Okay.

And I'm sure you're grateful for that.

>> Absolutely.

>> Were there moments where it was close?

Where where you were in a very dangerous situation and you kept your wits about you and you did not discharge.

>> Right.

Okay.

>> Oh, several times.

I mean, I a young man was shooting a gun off in a in an area of a nightclub one night, and myself and several officers were on foot, and I could see the man holding the gun in his hand shooting.

And I'm not sure if he was shooting at someone because he was pointing down an alley.

and we got into a foot chase, you know, chasing after him, and he turned and and was pointing the gun at me, and I could have shot him, but there was two other young ladies on the other side of him, so I didn't want to take the risk of missing him and hitting them.

and so I at that point was able to step off the side area between the sidewalk and grass towards where there was parked cars and get between that is cover from the, the male pointing the gun and eventually he ran through the backyards and we were able to get to the other side and catch him.

and again, my partner and I along with him in the backyard, we could have done anything and said we would justify it, but we didn't.

Right.

We responded to not only our training, but to our moral compass.

and so there were those events, you know encountering people with weapons the ones that you're speaking to where I had to draw my weapon and actually discharge it against you know, dogs that were attacking during our emergency task.

>> Force warrants.

>> Aren't you?

And I'm a dog person.

I love dogs, raised with dogs.

Have dogs now.

And that was hard, you know, because, you know, that dog was just doing his job in trying to protect his master.

>> It was.

>> Trained how it was trained.

>> And it's terrible.

But I understand where you're at there.

>> And so those things, you know, for me to.

Here this I.C.E.

officer say that afterwards, you know, some people would say, well, that's a visceral response to stress.

And part of that could be true.

>> Yeah.

>> But what did he do next?

>> It was all those other parts that come next.

Yeah.

With the not going right into rendering aid to try to sustain life you know, so it's all those other things that, that you start to compile together that the one statement and then the actions afterwards shows that there was this disregard for life rather than trying to preserve life.

along with the other actions that led up to it.

>> So if you had to in your training when you were an officer, if you had to shoot a person.

The protocols, once the threat is disengaged, once the threat is neutralized.

>> Right.

>> What are you doing for that person, even though they were maybe trying to hurt you or kill you, what do you do?

You're trained to do what?

>> So as a as a street officer, you know, you're going to get on the radio and immediately ask for medical assistance, you know, give the information to the dispatcher that you, you know, the discharge of a weapon persons down and rendering first aid.

And so whether that is you know, getting your, your kit, if you have one in the car or telling your next officer that's coming up, you know, bring your emergency bag.

let's start to do the life saving steps.

And that could be you know, CPR.

That could be a number of different things.

Whatever it is you're trying to do is to now, counteract what's happening with the deadly force action.

Right?

You know that it's deadly force is the potential that this person may expire.

But at the same time, you have to show an attempt to preserve that person's life till you can get them to a medical facility.

so it is a matter of you're doing a number of different things all at the same time.

And it's it's really hard to bring a person into a situation like that, to give them a visualization.

But, you know, again, you're on the radio, you're asking for help, you're rendering aid to the individual.

you're looking around for others who can make a phone call or could help you in assisting in saving.

So like in the video wherein you had someone saying, I'm, you know, a physician or I'm a medical personnel, you know, let me check vitals.

if you believe that person to be who they say they are, you going to have them try to assist you in rendering aid to to the individual?

So it's it's all those different things that that come into play.

>> Okay.

>> And one other question for Marv before we grab Maggie's phone call in Rochester.

So Maggie, hang there for one second.

When you were an officer, was there a protocol for shooting into a moving vehicle?

Because that's been discussed a lot.

And I know over time that has been studied and debated and departments, what do you remember about that?

>> So we had training, what we call training bulletins.

And so those things were again talking about scenarios wherein you if you were shooting at a fleeing person or a vehicle that's moving and they give you the protocol saying that, you know, you do not want to take the shot at a vehicle because now that vehicle becomes a moving missile, you can't control it.

The person that was controlling it.

So whatever happens after that, you own it.

So it's using tactical you know, training and saying, okay, if I were to shoot into this moving vehicle, why am I shooting into the vehicle?

Is it that they're trying to run somebody else over?

If me shooting the vehicle, shooting into the vehicle, is it going to stop that from happening?

>> Right?

>> Are you saving somebody else's life?

>> Right.

So you have to be able to play that out in your mind in split seconds.

but the goal is if the vehicle is coming at you, you know, can I, you know, effectively get out of the way.

And if I were to shoot in the vehicle, would it stop the vehicle from still running me over, you know, so, you know, the policy that I remember back in the time that I was on the department was that you didn't shoot into a moving vehicle, and then it had other side issues to, you know, to add to those components.

>> Maggie and Rochester on the phone.

Hi, Maggie.

Go ahead.

>> Hey, I just I appreciate the perspectives of the two people that you have on.

And I just think this case is bringing up this sort of fundamental tension between, like, legality and morality and the fact that whether or not these actions are legal, they're sort of patently and obviously immoral.

And and I really appreciated Marc saying, like, I use my moral judgment and didn't fire into a place that I could have hit other people.

And I think one of the most intelligent or at least meaningful to me, things that I read about this was the fact that Ice actually uses this tension to try to sort of play this both sides role right now, where they are obviously and purposefully violating people's civil rights, operating in a way that they are trying to frighten and terrorize people, that they're doing this on purpose and they're under training people because they want to just find people that are willing to to do this.

And like training would undercut that.

At the same time that they're trying to act like there's some sort of benevolent force for good and order and making people safer.

And I think the more that we see people recording them and standing up to them and talking about this, the more we can sort of erode the ability to fence right on that and play both sides of that coin at the same time, even though I think for most reasonable people, like it's really heartbreaking to see, you know, some of our, our neighbors and people in this country trying to have this really like, disgusting, like Renee Good, you know, after round and found out kind of thing when like, that's not the way that any of this is supposed to operate.

There are procedures here even for doing these things.

If you believe in them that aren't being followed.

And the emphasis I want to make is that they're not being followed on purpose.

Like this, this heavy handedness is purposeful, and we should point that out when we talk about it.

>> Yeah.

Maggie, thank you for the phone call.

Alex emailed and said essentially the same thing that that what we are seeing is intentional.

Laura Jedeed what do you see there?

>> I would agree with that to a large extent.

I think it's important to remember that Jonathan Ross, the man who murdered Renee Good was hired in 2017.

So this problem did not start with the lack of training that we're seeing.

I agree that the lack of training is either purposeful or they simply don't care.

But I think the saying is that the purpose of a system is what it does.

The purpose of Ice is what it's doing, and what it's doing is terrorizing people.

And again, it is not terrorizing people with a bunch of people at the top saying, this isn't who we are, or we're going to do remedial training.

These are officers who are terrorizing people with the full throated support of the people who are in charge of them directly.

So, yeah, I think intentionality it's hard to imagine this being unintentional.

>> Laura, one more email comes from Dallas.

He says it's never a good idea to attempt to block a federal agent with your car, and the lady's wife yelling, why were you using real bullets?

You should talk about that.

Dallas goes on to say, I don't care, I support them.

I think a lot of the protesters are playing a game.

It's just because of Trump.

Trump Derangement syndrome.

What do you think, Laura?

Go ahead.

>> Well, I don't think that what you just described is a capital offense.

And I think that if you do think that that you're anti-American and as an American patriot, I completely reject the idea that speech deserves capital punishment on the street.

So, you know, if that's how you feel, that's fine.

But you're not an American in the sense that I recognize it.

>> What do you make of of Evan?

>> Can I respond.

>> To that?

>> Yeah.

Go ahead.

Yep, yep.

>> Go ahead.

>> So to that caller I use does not have jurisdiction.

They're not trained in vehicle stops.

They're not trained in traffic control.

If they had an issue with the Renee Good blocking traffic, they should have reached out to the jurisdiction of the police.

That that that to the police that have that jurisdiction in that area to have her pulled over have her cited, and then they can supply a deposition.

So I think that's the part that becomes problematic, is that you have a lot of civilians who think they know the law is, and they stand with the emotional position, like he's trying to protect us and and saying that she got what she got because she did what she did.

And that's a very bad, bad space to be in because with the actions that these I.C.E.

officers are doing right now, operating outside of their jurisdiction they're creating this environment where people are going to say, you know what?

We're going to arm ourselves and we're going to protect ourselves.

And the I.C.E.

officers are going to get what they get because they did what they did.

And that's not a good place to be in.

So I hate to hear callers or even people saying things like that, because it's only a matter of time before people hit a threshold of where they're saying, we're not respecting law enforcement, whether it's Ice or law enforcement, we're going to take matters in our own hand because we don't feel like we're being heard or that we're being seen, and they're going to feel like they're being brutalized and they're going to turn.

It's just a human reaction, you know?

So I think that that's very dangerous.

What he's saying there, and that's problematic for me as as one who served in law enforcement to hear that.

>> 20s Laura, do you think it is dangerous for people to protest Ice right now?

And do you think people should not be doing that because of that?

>> Is it dangerous?

Absolutely.

Should you be doing it anyway?

Absolutely.

The more people who protest, the less dangerous it becomes.

And we can't give up this country so easily.

We have to fight for it.

>> Laura, where do you want people to find your work?

>> you can find my work on my Substack.

Firewalld media.com.

Or you can look me up.

I am the only Laura Jedeed on the internet.

If you do what I didn't do, you will find me immediately.

>> Laura Jedeed responded right away when we reached out and we were grateful for your time.

I know a lot of people are talking about the piece that you wrote for slate that came out this week.

We'll link to it in our show notes.

Laura, thank you for making time for our program today.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

>> Marv Stepherson retired Rochester Police sergeant and a military veteran, a Monroe County legislator for district number three.

Thank you for being on the program today.

>> Thank you for having me, sir.

>> We got more Connections coming up in just a moment.

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