Episode 8: Fund the Police

Published Jun 14, 2021, 9:00 AM

It’s no coincidence that violent crime has skyrocketed across America as the nationwide campaign to defund the police has spread. This isn't rocket science: Where law enforcement is weak, criminals thrive. For this podcast, Anna explains why defunding the policies hurts minorities more than anyone — the same minorities who progressives promoting the defend the police movement supposedly want to help. To better understand how destructive the defund the police movement truly is, Anna has an amazing conversation with Jon Vazquez, an Army veteran who is currently an officer in law enforcement.

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Up next, Luna Talks with Anna Paulina. Luna part of the gang, which it's no coincidence the violent crimes have stored across America, especially during the nationwide campaign to defund the police. This isn't rocket science. Where law enforcement is weak, criminals thrive, and the ones who suffer the most are minorities. Those same minorities who progressives promoting the defunding the police movement supposedly want to help. America needs to learn the truth before communities are ravaged. This is Luna Talks with Anna Paulina. Hey, everyone, welcome back to this week's episode of Luna Talks with me, your host on A. Paulina. This week, we're going to be having a special guest with us, someone by the name of Officer Vasquez, and I wanted to bring him in to provide some perspective for you guys on what this whole idea of defund the police actually means. You know, over the last two presidential election cycles, defund the police and the idea behind it, largely rooted in BLM mind You, has been a constant topic of discussion for many progressive Democrats, and it seems to be everywhere not just in Hollywood, but on social media. You can't seem to run away from it. But what does defund the police actually mean? In my opinion, many people get caught up on what the actual meaning is an idea behind it. They don't understand that defund the police actually means monetarily defunding the police. Who does this impact and why is this such a dangerous idea. Unfortunately, my experience, like most lower income Americans, growing up new firsthand what law enforcement did and had very very early interactions with law enforcement. I remember many times growing up when my father was getting pulled over, or because he was getting in trouble, he was getting arrested. I remember domestic disturbances where cops were called. And I remember sitting down with detectives after the armed robbery that I survived, looking through a book of black and white mug shots, trying to help the detectives identify the two guys that had held up the store. You know, that was my reality, and I didn't think that it was abnormal. But the one thing that I think it's important to know is that even as a child, I knew that if there was trouble I had to dial nine one, and sometimes I did, and those cops that would come, they would be there to fix whatever chaos I was experiencing. My question is this, do the legislators in Congress and Senate and these social movement activists and leaders realize that the hardest hit communities for defunding the police are the exact communities that they're claiming to quote unquote help. If you look at the violence that's taken place in Portland or Minneapolis or Chicago, that lifestyle, that hood mentality, the inner city gang culture is something that I would never wish upon anyone, and it's something that I actually experienced early on. These people, these law enforcement officers that on a regular basis have to deal with these brutal crime scenes, overdoses, domestic violences, crime on a regular basis is, they are painted to be enemies of the public by the media when an actuality, they're people just like you and I. And when I tell you what I saw and how I grew up at what I experienced, many times I was taken out of bad situations because law enforcement showed up, because good cops were there. Many members of the law enforcement community are much like that of the military community. They go hand in hand. These people lose friends, the community itself turns into family, but it can be absolutely brutal for personal lives. And if all of this wasn't bad enough, you have wealthy and entitled football players wearing socks with pigs on them, social media influencers and half of Hollywood calling law enforcement murderers, and elected officials refusing to back the very people that keep our community safe. I don't think that I've ever shared this with you guys before, but unfortunately, when I was about ten years old, my father was arrested and he was brutally beaten by to law enforcement officers. He had a broken collar bone, black eyes, and was in pretty bad shape. I also remember, I think, um from what I recall, is that his actual risks had been shattered and it was so bad that he could even drive to pick me up from school. And I remember seeing my father like that, and as a child, you just like I heard because I saw my father even sometimes now get emotional talking about it. But for me and for that experience, just because you had this happened as an isolated incident with these officers does not mean that all law enforcement are bad. And it does not mean that all police officers are bad. Should that have happened to my father, Absolutely not, And was I angry that it happened to him, Absolutely But you cannot allow for these isolated incidences to be exploited and make blanket statements and assumptions based on that. And in fact, what I found as I grew up is that that whole idea of of branding the police and assuming that all law enforcement is bad, that's a complete lie. You know, I not only have an goal that is a homicide detective whom we actually met later on in life. I knew him when I was about five, but that's about the age frame when I think he found my mom. He was actually adopted out from the family. But I have actually known, and I'm proud to call several members of you know, my friend unit, my friend family unit, their law enforcement officers. And you can find countless videos on the Internet and on social media of law enforcement doing good things. But the media is never going to show that to you, and why well, because if they did, it would completely discredit their argument and tactic of politically dividing this country. So today I wanted to give you some insight into the life and experience of someone who I not only call my friend, but as a member of the law enforcement family. His name is Officer Vascas, and we will be back with his story after this short break. Officer of Vascaz is someone who I've had the privilege of really getting to know over the last year or so. He's an Army veteran, spent extensive time in his career in law enforcement, working in arcotics, and is now canine officer. But his story is the exact story that the media doesn't want you to hear, which is exactly why I asked him to join. Officer Vasquez, thank you so much for coming onto Luna Talks and thank you for your service for starters. I know that you're from New York. How did a young Puerto Rican kid like yourself find yourself not just in the military, but a member of law enforcement. Did you always want to be a cop? No? Not initially? Um, so, like you said, I was born in the bronx Um, raised by two fantastic parents, great uh household working parents. Um. The day changed my mentality when September eleventh happened. I was working at a pizza shop. I got word that a plane hit the tower. Being from New York, I'm thinking it's just some guy in a private jet showing off and you know, he missed, misjudged something, miscalculated something, and he accidentally hit the tower. So we turned on the TVs at the pizza shop and realized that we were under attack, and we watched the second plane hit the tower. At that time was the first time in my life. I had just turned eighteen the month prior. That was the first time I've ever heard the word terrorism and terrorists and and in short order, uh, they kind of narrowed it down to a geographical area in the Middle East that they believe that those are the people responsible for this terrorist attack. I called my dad while still at the pizza shop covered in flower and dough from getting prepped for the day on the early morning, and I told him I was like, Hey, you know, I don't know what to do about this. You know, I feel like I should do something. I think I'm going to join the army UM And that's that's what led to my service September eleven. Was a catalyst that that wanted or that drove me to want to serve our country. Now I imagine especially just kind of with your family upbringing. I mean, your parents must have been kind of scared, right you're there is a sun obviously joining and then given the circumstance, I mean, now it's especially I feel like people like you're really shattering stereotypes. What is your family think about what's happening right now with the way law enforcement is treated. Well, to go back to the original statement you made, they were absolutely terrified. I don't come from along or any kind of family background in military or law enforcement, so for them to hear that their firstborn son is volunteering to go join the military once we knew pretty much that we were going to end up in war, Uh, they were definitely terrified. You know, my dad is a stoic kind of guy, and and he just you know, agreed and said, you know, good luck. And my mom obviously you know, lost her mind, but definitely both supportive. Um, they were definitely supportive of my decision to go into law enforcement after I got out of the military. Uh. And they've been with me every step of the way. UM. And it's a shame, and they're frustrated with how this, uh, this narrative is being turned. Now you know, the day after September eleven, UM law enforcement was praised for being the first responders to respond to September eleven to the towers being attacked. And you take a look at you know, we're about to hit the twentieth anniversary. It's a complete one eight on how the national narrative views police. So, you know, it's always interesting, especially with this whole concept of the defund the police movement that you know claims to help minorities, right, like that's their whole motivation behind it, but it always fails to mention that there is such thing as minority law enforcement officers. And I know that on the ride along the I did that, you know, I saw so much camaraderie within the law enforcement community from people of all colors and creed. So, I mean my question is, do you really have any dat or facts that address what the defund the police movement has really done in regards to hurting you know, minority and lower income communities, especially being that most of their whole goal and objective is to essentially, as they claim, help these communities. Yeah. Absolutely, to speak on one of the points you brought up, the agency that I work for is probably one of the most diverse into area. Uh. You know, we cover all race undercreed uh and sexual preference there is you know, we are a true representation of our community. And I think that's what all police departments strive for. And we're looking for those people from all those diverse backgrounds to come and try to join the ranks and and be a police officer. Said that they can help serve the community. But some of the statistics is absolutely insane. For example, in Minneapolis, between December eleven in March of this year, murders in that city rose. Going back even further, there have been more homicides since the initial budget cut in July. The total violent crime in Minneapolis between July and March is also a year over year. You know. You can go to New York, where murders are up eleven point eight percent year to date. As of March twenty one, the number of shootings rose one um L A p D. They're reporting a thirty eight increase in murders. In and One murders are up twenty eight point You can go to Portland, which has more staggering statistics. In the first two months of one alone, Portland reported seventeen murders, which is a sixteen hundred increase from the single murder reported during the first two months of the Portland Police Bureau statistics UH shows that that it's a six increase, which is it's staggering, wow, and it's it's always crazy to me. We have friends out in California that do private security, and a lot of them said that after this whole defund the police and really BLM started writing and you know, the states we're talking about actually taking away funding. UM that after that happened, there's an increase in private security. So it seems like those that are really wealthy that are pushing this, they can afford the private security and safety, but people you know, from the lower income communities and from minority communities cannot. And I always kind of find that to be the hypocritical argument in all of this is how could they actually say that they're helping when in actuality, just like the stats that you you listed, it's actually making it worse for us UM. A lot of police officers, especially now, are retiring across the country, and many more are discouraged from seeing so many people demonize the police. I imagine that this would probably deter a lot of the good recruits from joining the police movement and moving forward. What would be your message to those who are unsure of getting involved with law enforcement, especially in this environment, or to those currently serving who are losing morale and possibly considering retiring. Yeah, that's that's definitely a a fact. UM. In New York, fifty three hundred police officers has have retired or submitted paperwork to retire to leave the force. In that's a seventy increase from the previous year. That's fifty officers who are sitting there analyzing their life, uh and figuring out that it's not worth continuing to serve, that they're better off retiring, which is said. UM, what we're finding here in the agency that I work for is that we are getting recruits. UM. We are getting people who are applying who are certified police officers from out of state. Uh. Some of those states are New York, Chicago. UM. Where they want to leave that ideology and that mindset of defund the police and come to an organization and a location like the agency that I work for, that supports this police and work there. I think two things are gonna happen. UM. One, you're gonna have voids of very well trained and people who have a lot of experience of leaving their agencies and coming to agencies of like mind that are still pro police. And the problem that we're seeing is is who's going to fill that void? Are they going to have to take people who are not as qualified just to fill the ranks, And that's scary. You know, it takes a special person to be a police officer, and we look for special traits and people. Uh, you know, nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop, and we don't want those people to become police officers if they're not doing it for the right reasons. What I would tell the people who are here, um, it stands strong. You know, this is what you do. You joined for a reason, you have a calling and stands strong. And I think with the silent majority and our legislators who are our friends, UM, that we can keep it going in the right direction and in partnership with the community, we can definitely get out of this dark time. I love that you just said that you know, no one hates bad cops more than good cops. I think that that's so important because especially now you see these blanket statements like they take an isolated incident and try to basically say that all law enforcement are bad and that's the complete, complete and absolutely lie. Um. By the way, how long have you been serving as a law enforcement officer? So? I did five and a half years in the military as a military police officer, and I've been at my agency now a little bit over thirteen years, so about eighteen and a half years in total so far. Wow. Okay, so you've definitely probably seen a ton, especially during your time in the military and then obviously working now as a law enforcement officer in the civilian sector. Is there one story that really stuck with you where you really feel that had you not been there, that someone possibly may have been killed, and or that you knew for a fact that you know, this whole movement to call for the defunding of the police, that that would have actually impacted, you know, this situation in a negative way. So it would be hard to just think of one. When I worked in arcotics, I was in a street crimes unit, and we worked street level in narcotics where we went and try to arrest drug buyers and drug dealers on a daily basis. UM. And one instance comes to mind where we had an individual who I would say was praying on the UH community and that individual was selling heroin UM. And when we arrested him, he was in possession of more than a hundred individually packaged packets of heroin. And if you think about, oh, it's just drugs, is that's not that big the deal. A lot of stuff stems from drugs. When you have people who are addicted to drugs, are dependent on drugs, they'll do anything for that. So they're robbing, their stealing, they're committing murders. UM. They'll do anything they can to get their fixed. So somebody was in that community, in the minority community, poisoning their community. UM. And another example, as a as a Can nine handler UM, I was able to we were able to get a call UM of a individual who was UH sexually being a sexual predator on a minor under the age of nine. We got that call late at night, we were able to respond within minutes. I was able to get out with my police Can nine dog and track the individual and apprehend him. You know, had we not been called UM, who knows what would happened to that little girl? Had we not been able to respond that fast, who would have known would have happened to that little girl? And if we would not have been able to catch him, who knows how many more victims he would have prayed upon. So I think defunding the police is bad because what it would do is slow down police response. It not that police wouldn't want to respond as quickly, but there would be less police officers to do so. Uh, and that bogs down the system. We take pride in being able to respond to N calls as fast as possible in every in any community. Wow. That's um, that's a really incredible story. And obviously thank you so much for everything that you guys have to deal with on a regular basis. I can tell you that even just hearing that story alone, that there's so much that I feel like you guys deal with it just the general public is oblivious to. And it's just it's incredible that you guys push forward the way that you do. Um. You know, before we wrap up your interview, though, I want to ask you a few more questions. So sit tight, everyone, and we'll be right back after the short break. So, in practical terms, how do the significant budget cuts like we've seen in New York City and elsewhere to police departments hurt their ability to do their jobs effectively, and should we actively be increasing budgets so that these departments can ask more money in training to better prepare officers for the kinds of incidences that we hear about in the news. Absolutely, the thought of defunding the police department or police agency or police in general is mind boggling. UM. Police respond to nine one one calls. We need a certain number of police officers to be able to be on the street at a given time to handle all those nine one one calls. We don't ever want to put a call on hold and let that person who's potentially going through their worst experience in their life wait at the late amount of time to have an officer respond to them. We take pride in how quick respond to our calls. UM. In that sense, it's a customer service group. We want to get to the issue as fast as possible, and we know that sent a times, it's a life saving measure. When people call nine one one, you know, for the most part, it's not because the neighbor's dog is barking. It's because something traumatic is happening. UM. And as far as training, I love that you said that I am a training free UM. I practice Brazilian jiu jitsu, and I think something like that needs to be more funded and brought to agencies. UM times ten. You know, whatever the training budget is for defensive tactics needs to be raised throughout the country. UM. I don't ever want a police officers first experience with an incident being on the street. I want that to happen in the training room. I want that to happen to a training environment, and I wanted to happen multiple times so that doing the right thing becomes second nature. You know, if you've never been in a physical altercation with somebody, and you can find yourself getting beat up, UM, who knows what's running through your mind and what action you may take to save your life. But if you have the confidence of being able to control that situation, that situation becomes safer for you, and that situation becomes safer for the for the person you're trying to apprehend. UM. I think defensive tactics is is huge, but funding for training in general, the escalation training that needs to be happening, and if we have a limited number of officers on the streets. We can't pull them away for training because then they won't be able to respond to nine calls. So more money, more officers for these departments create a better uh existence for the community and police. Wow. And it's interesting actually you bring that up. I remember from the ride along that I had gone on, there was actually a female officer that was at one of the stops that we were at, and she had actually, I guess, just come back from being on leave. She had been assaulted and was able because of her training to defend herself and thank God that she's here today because she was basically attacked by a very bad man. And so I know that that is something obviously, when you guys go to work, in many instances, it can be life and death. And I think a lot of people tuned in realize that. But it's you know, it's unfortunate that the mainstream media and that you know, Hollywood and these celebrities feel so entitled that they stand your experiences and they just have no idea what you guys are dealing with. Um, I guess you know that would kind of segway into our final question here. You know, obviously You're very involved with the law enforcement community, and if people listening to this show want to get involved and support l e O. UM, what are some organizations that they can give to should they volunteer? What would you recommend for how people can give back to our law enforcement community. Absolutely so, not only my police officer, UM, but I'm the president of the sun Coast Police Benevolent Association. UM. I have about fred and and and rising number of officers and deputies that I represent as their union president. UM. You know, we had a significant loss this year in Deputy Magley. UM. So what I would say is that the way people could help support their law enforcement is through donating uh, their time, their money, and their efforts to the Sun Coast law enforcement charities. We can be found at UM our handle sun Coast p BA on Facebook and Instagram at sun Coast p b A, and we have those handles at Facebook and Instagram. UM. But you know, beyond on the money and volunteering standpoint, when you see your police officer, just thank your police officer and let them know that that you stand there with them and that you support them. You know. UH, sometimes people take that for granted, but I I see an officer smile every time somebody approaches them and thanks them for their service and let's us know that the community is still with us. Wow. Well, thank you so much, Officer of ASCAS for joining us today on Luna Talks. And for those who tuned in, I think it's really important to remember that it's also our job to help share these stories like the ones Officer of ASKAS has shared. You know, law enforcement officers are people just like you and I, and they deal with a lot on a regular basis, and many times don't get paid enough. And we can change hearts and minds, but it starts by changing the conversation and educating our peers, especially in this crazy world that we're currently in. Don't ever be afraid to speak the truth. And you never know whose life you can impact or in this officer's case, save Before we go, I want to thank you guys so much for listening. If you enjoy today's show, please leave us a review and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts. You can also find me on social media Twitter, Parlor, Facebook and Instagram at real Anna Paulina. And a special thank you to our producer Drew Steele, writer Aaron Kleigman and executive producers Debbie Meyers and Speaker New Gingridge part of The Gingridge through Sixt Network

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