12/22/15 – Jon B. Carroll – The Scott Horton Show

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Our next guest on the show today is John B. Carroll, and he writes at HenryCountyReport.com.
Welcome back to the show, John.
How are you doing?
I'm good, Scott.
How are you doing?
I'm doing really good.
Hey, so everybody, you remember John, he was on the show just a couple of weeks ago about the story of the corruption in a town called Dothan in Alabama, right?
Yes, sir.
Man, I almost thought Arkansas for a second.
OK, good.
I'm glad I only partially screwed that up by thinking I screwed it up.
OK, Dothan, Alabama.
And what you said on the show a couple of weeks ago and wrote on your site here at HenryCountyReport.com is that you got your hands on many, many documents from an internal affairs investigation into what amounted to, in layman's terms, a conspiracy between the prosecutors, the cops and the judicial branch.
In this town to routinely frame up and convict innocent black men, primarily of drug possession charges, but not only that.
And now, so where I want to start the interview today was and you can correct me if I misstated any of that or whatever, feel free.
But what I want to start with was you got a little bit of criticism for getting out way ahead of your documents, supposedly.
And I admit that I didn't really do all my diligence and read through all my documents and make sure that your entire story held up to the documents and this and that.
But I did read your responses, for one, at the Radley Balco site on The Washington Post, where you wrote in the comments section and said, well, just wait and see.
And a little bit of this.
Clearly, you had this news story that we're going to get to about the new witnesses that you have in your favor, etc.
Like this.
Plenty of time for that.
But I just wanted to ask you whether you thought there were any criticisms, any valid criticisms of whether your reporting got out ahead of your documents and whether you wanted to address that in any way.
Sure.
And we welcome any and all criticism.
Just to go back to just a moment, what the Henry County Report is, is an online newspaper.
It's a community nonprofit.
They're primarily for people.
So it's not my website.
It's just I occasionally write for them.
I've written for Truthout, several other publications in the past.
But they have a very vested interest in the community, the larger community in southeast Alabama, where Dothan is located.
So just to clarify for your listeners, it's not necessarily my site.
I'm just one of the people that write on the site.
We welcome the criticism.
I think 90s, take Mr.
Balko's article in The Washington Post.
He never tried to contact us.
We pointed that out.
Even after we gave him personal cell phone numbers, our editor gave him that.
He had already published his article and he wasn't going to retreat on that, which is fine.
And I think 90 percent of his article is spot on about how he inquired about the judicial district and the district attorney.
But it would have been nice if The Washington Post had actually followed up and contacted some of the sources that we had that were willing to speak with a news organization like that.
So he missed out on that opportunity.
You know, and that would be in one case, the person that was in charge of the Internal Affairs Division that published those documents that he was the originator of those documents and conducted the investigation.
He was more than willing to speak directly with anyone with The Washington Post.
But Mr. Balko, in his rush to criticize a little, you know, crossroads, dirt road paper, we don't we're not much on the pecking order, Scott.
Yes, that's really too bad for a rural community.
And that's OK, you know, because it's just like you.
If you can poke holes in our story, we're the very first person that wants to know it so we can get it right.
That's our attitude, you know, very progressive.
Well, and that's why I had you back on, because I figure, you know, if you made a mistake here or there, I don't know specifically what they would be.
But you seem like a straight shooter to me and that you're trying your best and that you're concerned with the truth getting out here, you know, to the benefit of the innocent victims of the authorities here.
So that's good enough for me.
And I'm surprised about what you say about Balko's lack of follow up.
He usually does a really great job on this kind of stuff.
And so it's unfortunate to hear that.
He's a great guy, great thinker, maybe just really busy.
And and that's OK.
You know, one of the conflicts.
Well, and as the story develops further, you know, we'll see what happens.
He might get right back to it.
Right.
One of the things that we were caught in a conflict with is honoring our word to our sources.
One, we had to protect our identity because some of these sources are current police officers.
Some are retired.
Some are working with other police forces.
But all were there during this common period when this went on.
And they had very specific names that they wanted redacted out of the documents.
And some of these names were confidential informants.
Some of these names were other sworn law enforcement officers that had filed written complaints on fellow officers.
So, you know, we were left with you take it or leave it.
You know, so we decided we would stick to our word and honor our sources.
And we had people like Slate Magazine, for example.
It's Leon Nefesky in the Southern Poverty Law Center.
They they just demanded that we hand over all the documents, which is, you know, around 800 some odd documents.
And we just couldn't do that with any kind of good conscience because we don't know, number one, that they will honor the word we gave to our sources.
We did give them to the DOJ, right?
Didn't you say that you did turn over everything to the Department of Justice?
Yeah, they have access.
They have a secure, encrypted access to any of the documents as well.
We have since you and I spoke, we have the state of Alabama.
His attorney general has assigned a special prosecutor, Matt Hart, to investigate this case.
And we have agreed to give him access as well after our sources gave us the green light.
OK, and so that's a new development, too, then the special prosecutor, right?
That's a new development and probably the biggest development we've had is a former prosecutor named Kaleah Lane has come forward and did a radio interview with us.
We interviewed her twice.
We just posted her first interview and she has acknowledged that there were she knew of hundreds of cases like this.
And she actually complained to the FBI and gave the local FBI office the name of the defendants, the name of the arresting officer, the circumstances of which they were complaining drugs were planted.
And the FBI never once investigated any of the cases, the complaints against the Davidson Police Department.
So that's that's big in our favor that we have a, you know, Ms.
Lane has actually also served as an assistant district attorney in Macon County to the north of here.
So very credible person, solid member of the bar, worked both sides of the fence as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney.
And she says, look, this has been going on for years.
And she also confirmed she has a current case pending where a young man has been placed in an amphetamine torture.
And this, you know, this corroborates what these witnesses and victims and former police officers all say.
Amazing.
And, you know, it's funny, I know people are so biased toward the police as their protectors that they try to think of an excuse.
The person they done that to must have been really bad, must have something, something, something.
But just think about if that's somebody that you care about.
You know, the fact that they were torturing them with fire ants would tend to me to indicate that we should more than presume the guy was innocent if that's what they had to do to get him to so-called confess.
And just think about that's your cousin, your nephew, your brother, somebody that you care about, that that's what the cops do to him.
I mean, that absolutely is torture.
And that absolutely is.
Hang on right there.
We're about to have to take this break.
But I wanted to just say real quick at the break, this this story about Kali Elaine.
I mean, this ought to be the biggest national news all across this country right now that they got an assistant district attorney coming forward with major verifications here.
Hang tight on the line, John.
We'll be right back, everybody.
It's John B. Carroll writing at Henry County Report dot com.
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All right, so welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Talking with John B. Carroll.
And he's writing at Henry County Report dot com there in Alabama and a huge developing story about a multiple member conspiracy among the police, the prosecutors and the judges.
This conveyor belt of innocent black men framed up, I think mostly on drug possession charges.
Right, John?
That's right.
And Scott, we had two other really big developments this past week that I want to make sure your listeners know the we had hundreds of people show up at a community meeting in a little small Pentecostal church in a traditionally black community.
And they were the police were there taking pictures of the people and taking pictures of their license plates.
They then the next few days went to a city commission meeting and demanded the resignation of this police chief.
Or they were called black thugs in the local media.
Just unbelievable.
So we started getting threats because they accused our little newspaper of inciting civil unrest.
So we were fortunate enough to have a federal whistleblower come to us, share confidential documents there on our website that identified all the major white supremacists operating in the Dothan government and the Dothan community.
All I did is redact their social security numbers and I put it up there.
If they want to continue to threaten us, we're going to put more information up there and we're going to identify these people.
Yeah, we already identified their names and their physical addresses and phone numbers.
But we're going to go further than that.
They pushed us one more time.
So this is a real battle down here in South Alabama to get this chief and his goon squad out of office.
Well, now, so you talked about how what the state attorney general then appointed this special prosecutor.
So there's some there must be some pressure other than in just the black community for something to happen here.
Right.
Or it wouldn't happen.
It is.
Yeah, the state, the state, the state NAACP came down and they have gotten involved.
They are formally asking for his resignation.
But, you know, so far we have zero movement.
They are claiming this will all go away.
They're starting an operation that's called Operation Black Watch.
They're installing security cameras and all the traditional black neighborhoods.
Operation Black Watch, really?
It's just insane.
They're not listening.
You know, I have a rebel flag here in my cabin, but if I was a public servant and I had to work with or over or underneath people in a taxpayer funded position, it's pretty damn insensitive for me to have that flag draped all over my office.
And that's what this guy is.
I mean, you saw his press conference.
He made it all about himself.
It's not about the sensitivity to people of African descent that this man is supposed to lead.
Not to mention 48 percent of the community of Dothan happens to be of color.
There's just no there's not any.
Connection to reality with these people.
They're still fighting a lost cause, war of northern aggression, it's just insane, you know.
And I think they think it's smart to plant drugs on young black men.
That's just insane.
Well, they think it's fun to do that and think it's profitable, is I think the real answer there.
But so.
But now.
So tell me more about this.
The assistant district attorney here who has come forward because this is unheard of as far as I know that an ADA is going to say it's all true about these guys.
That she's she's she's a former city prosecutor for the city of Dothan, and she's worked in a county, a judicial district north of here's assistant district attorney and currently works as a defense attorney held in very high regard.
And she worked, I believe, seven years as a city prosecutor.
So she literally, you know, you can you can we can give you access to that file if you want to use it and play it for your listeners.
She literally knew of hundreds.
She had hundreds of cases where she complained directly to the FBI and they didn't do nothing about it.
So there's zero trust with local law enforcement when you have the leader of this police department of, you know, the town of Dothan is, say, eighty, ninety thousand surrounding two hundred thousand population.
There's just no trust at this point moving forward.
Well, that's a huge flaw in the theory that all we have is the national government, the Department of Justice as the check on our local cops.
When I mean, obviously it's difficult, as you say, when the people come together, the media gangs up with the government to say, oh, look, they're all black dogs.
They they want to kill cops.
Oh, boo hoo.
And pretend that they're the victims.
When what we're talking about is the black community of the town saying, hey, all we want is a redress of injustice.
And there are a lot of whites of goodwill.
You know, there are a lot of rural country whites that are completely sympathetic to this.
And they just don't have the power to do anything about it.
Well, here's what's going to happen.
I tell you this, the insurance companies that the city of Dothan, Alabama, has insurance with in the state of Alabama, we have a qualified immunity law.
If you're a sworn officer, make a mistake in the line of duty.
If they're legal damages, you have immunity.
And if there's any money paid out, the insurance companies pay it.
But that's not if that police officer commits a felony in a criminal act.
So the city of Dothan has already been notified that its insurance companies are not going to pay out for any officers or management of those officers committing felonies.
So you can imagine if you've got a thousand people wrongfully convicted, let's say you had two or three hundred sent to prison.
It's going to be catastrophic financially for this town.
They're going to sue them into bankruptcy and that's what should happen.
Yeah.
And so now at this point, you mentioned the state level special prosecutor.
What are the feds claim they're doing about this, if anything, at this point?
They have not said anything.
They're just, you know, on the record, they have said nothing.
And, you know, I can't really discuss what they've said off the record, but they are analyzing these documents and they're interviewing people like Kelly Lane.
Yeah, I mean, it's really something else to have her say that she knows of at least 50 cases that she knows of personally were allegations.
Over a hundred, over a hundred.
Well, in this in this article here, it says as many as 50 were narcotics were planted.
Maybe that was more specific.
Yeah, that was the original article with just one officer.
He had 50 drug arrest pending with the court when he was, you know, when he was under pressure.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it seems like she's going to complain to the DOJ all that time.
Why didn't she just ask the state judge for a warrant for the arrest of these guys?
And just prosecute them herself.
I think in South Alabama, that would be a death sentence for her.
Yeah, she would probably have to wear a helmet around anyway.
Well, it's I just don't think that's feasible with the political climate.
I don't mean that physical death sentence, but career wise, she went to the FBI, you know, and when the FBI does nothing, we published I emailed you a link a little while ago.
And that'll be live later today.
But you have a private link to it.
You can read letter after letter after letter by sworn police officers writing to the U.S. attorney general all the way down to the state attorney general and the U.S. attorney say their cover ups.
This is what's going on.
No one ever came to help these guys.
Yeah.
Well, tell me when that it's OK to tweet that out and I'll go ahead and tweet that out.
I have the page right here.
Full of documents.
All right.
Thanks very much, John.
Appreciate your great journalism here.
Thank you, Scott.
That's John B. Carroll.
He writes at Henry County Report dot com.
And yeah, he's got the documents he claims to have here.
I got him.
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