Black and White and Thin Blue Lines

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Serge Antonin and Clarke Ahlers discuss the May 14, 2022 mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York. Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white male, has been indicted for killing ten and wounding three.  11 of the victims were black. Serge and Clarke discuss the known facts of the tragic incident, consider the response of the President, and then discuss a plan to understand why mass shootings are quickly become the new normal in the United States. 

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In this episode, Serge and Clarke discuss the under-publicized but highly questionable police shooting of Patrick Lyoya on April 4, 2022 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Keep your eyes on Grand Rapids in the next several months. Hear and learn about the case right here.

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The lives of so many Baltimore children are beset by the trauma of violence. In this podcast, Serge and Clarke talk to a man whose father was shot in the head in Baltimore when the man was in the second grade. He remembers being driven to Shock Trauma in a police car, where his father survived, but blinded and paralyzed. Hear the remarkable story of a man dedicated to making our world a better place by mentoring youth on the job and off. His 501(c)(3) enterprise is called Save Our Young. We invite you to meet this remarkable man, learn more about him, and to support his mission. www.soybaltimore.org. 

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Black and White and Thin Blue Lines introduces our listeners to men and women who fight the eternal battle for justice, or those who have fought it, or those who aspire to fight it. In our first episode of Season 2, we invite you to get to know the father/son team of lawyers, Lenny Stamm and Michael Stamm, who are leading the defense bar charge against the "forensic malpractice" (our words, not theirs) of the Maryland State Police Forensic Science Division crime lab blood testing. First, the listeners get to know two great lawyers and then Lenny and Michael give us an education on the scientific process of determining the amount of alcohol in a person's blood and the reasons the Maryland State Police crime lab was found to be non-conforming by its audit agency -- about six months before they told anybody. This episode is at once technical and interesting. We hope you will listen. 

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As communities struggle with increasing violence, school boards debate the utility of having police officers assigned to public schools. Two leading Democrat Presidents -- Clinton and Obama -- urged Congress to fund SROs (School Resource Officers) nationwide. Yet, the United States Department of Justice and the Department of Education have issued reports that SROs discipline African American students at a higher rate than Caucasian students. Kemp Freund, a retired police officer with a wealth of youth services experience, offers his keen insight on the value of the SRO program designed in the model of a guidance counselor/faculty member with special training in counseling and anti-violence initiatives. If you are the parent of a school aged child, or a citizen concerned with the future of our youth and country, this episode is worth a listen. 

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Assistant State's Attorney Natasha Blount ("Tasha") joins Serge and Clarke to debate the best five courtroom movies of all time and one agreed upon honorable mention. Hear Tasha's persuasive reason for not including "A Few Good Men" in her list. But it is Tasha's number one movie that leaves Clarke speechless -- something more than a few people might consider the best reason yet to listen to an episode.

Listeners know the seriousness of the problems this podcast often discusses. In this episode, we share our thoughts about something we all love: the movies. Serge and Clarke know that you will enjoy listening, especially to Tasha.

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Part II of the podcast: Maryland State Police v Trooper of the Year. In this episode Clarke, Serge and TFC Kashef Khan talk about a bizarre trial board where the prosecutor's first witness against TFC Khan was TFC Khan.  When Clarke Ahlers called an IAD investigator to the stand in the defense case, an Assistant Attorney General objected and claimed that Ahlers was attempting to introduce perjurious testimony into the proceeding. (Yes, the Prosecutor warned the Hearing Board that the testimony of the IAD investigator ought to be excluded because it was attempted perjury.) If you care about Maryland's finest, and you listen to this podcast, you will want to call Governor Hogan and ask him what the hell is going on in Pikesville? Or as Clarke and Serge say: "Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be Troopers."  And an update: Khan was fired on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.

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Serge and I discuss the backward world of the Maryland State Police with one of its own.  You will hear from a "brown skin Muslim" who was awarded the 2019 statewide "Trooper of the Year" by Governor Hogan. But the next year -- when he again outperformed every other trooper -- this Trooper First Class was told that a brown skin Muslim will NOT be the face of the agency two years in a row. Then a white Sergeant accused the Trooper of falsifying the location of a traffic stop in spite of four permanent MSP records that accurately recorded the location of the stop. The accusation of false report bordered on the absurd. The Maryland State Police cannot explain why key evidence is missing. But none of that mattered; an Assistant Attorney General advocated that an administrative hearing board convict the Trooper of the Year and recommend his termination to the Superintendent.  And they did that. This is part 1 of a two part podcast. You will want to write to Governor Hogan and move to Florida after this one.

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In this episode Serge and Clarke discuss two unrelated events: (1) the sentencing of former police officer Kim Potter after her conviction for manslaughter in the shooting death of Daunte Wright, and (2) an unfolding story of disparate treatment of two teenagers involved in a fight in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, shopping mall by police officers who arrive at the scene. One of the teenagers is Caucasian and one of the teenagers is African American. 

Both matters have received extensive press coverage, but Serge and Clarke offer facts and observations not found in press reports of these matters. 

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