Christian Madrigal, in a photo shared by his family
On this show:
0:13 – Home deaths have spiked in Houston, and a new ProPublica investigation tries to find out how many are attributable to Covid-19. Charles Ornstein, deputy managing editor at ProPublica, talks about the story.
0:34 – A massive trove of data leaked by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets from U.S. police departments has revealed police vitriol toward antifascist protesters, and more. We talk about some of the revelations from the documents, known as “Blueleaks,” with two journalists with The Intercept: Micah Lee, director of information security, and Ryan Deveraux, investigative reporter. You can read their pieces here:
- Hack of 251 law enforcement websites exposes personal data of 700,000 cops
- Leaked documents show police knew far-right extremists were the real threat at protests, not “Antifa”
1:08 – In June 2019, 20-year-old Christian Madrigal lost his life in Santa Rita Jail, after his family tried to seek mental health help for him while he was in crisis and he was taken to jail instead. Video of his death was just released. We are joined by his parents, Jose Jaime Covarrubias and Gabriela Covarrubias, to talk about their son and their fight for justice after his death, as well as Jose Bernal of the Ella Baker Center. The officer involved in Madrigal’s death, Lt. Craig Cedergren, was fired this week. DA Nancy O’Malley has declined to charge the Alameda County Sheriff’s employees involved in Madrigal’s death, copying and pasting text from a letter she issued also declining to charge officers involved in Dujuan Armstrong’s death.
1:33 – Sen. Nancy Skinner joins us to talk about her two new police reform bills, SB776, which would expand the types of police records subject to mandatory disclosure; and SB 773, which starts a process for directing 911 calls away from police if they involve mental health, public welfare, or homelessness. We also take calls from listeners.