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Sorry I'm late.
I had to stop by the wax museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America and by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it.
I say it again.
You've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came.
He saw.
He died.
We ain't killing their army.
We killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Michael Bell Sr.
We've interviewed him a few times.
You guys may be familiar.
His son, Michael Jr., was killed by police in 2004 and he has been pushing for a real investigation into his son's death as well as for real reform to try to achieve accountability for killer police, at least in his home state.
The website is michaelbell.info.
He has a brand new documentary, Forensically Impossible, Anatomy of a Police Cover-Up.
There's also this very important article you guys need to see at the Free Thought Project.
It's by Jack Burns there, exclusive.
Dad confronts the cop who killed his unarmed son, secretly records it.
Welcome back to the show, Michael.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing fine.
Thank you for having me on your show, Scott.
I really appreciate you doing this.
It must be really hard because you never really get to change the subject from this horrible tragedy in your life here and have to keep reliving it in a certain way, I'm sure, as you have to keep talking about it.
You're doing hard work to help other people and to help protect other people.
It's really important and I really appreciate it.
I know you know a lot of people do, but I just want to reiterate that for you.
I appreciate that.
It is hard, but I want people to understand that no matter what your socioeconomic class is, if your loved one is killed by a police officer, it's them against you.
I'm a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel.
I flew in several wars.
My son was killed by a police officer.
When I raised critical questions, I found out that they don't investigate police shootings like they do an NTSB type investigation of an aircraft crash.
That's what we're calling for.
We're calling for a new learning model across the nation where when police kill somebody, they look at it and say, what went wrong and how can we prevent this from happening again?
Which is not quite full accountability, but at least it's something because I think as you describe in your case, the cops show up the next day, they kind of look around the front yard and they go, okay, everything's fine, shrug their shoulders, case closed.
The cop did the right thing.
He had no choice, obviously, the fear of his life, whatever, whatever.
Obviously the conversation with the district attorney is there's nothing to look at here in terms of the cop possibly doing anything wrong and then that's the end of that, right?
The total investigation in my son's death lasted 56 hours and it was conducted by the co-workers of the officers involved.
Your listeners need to know that one of the officers involved took his own life in 2010 and our private investigators that we hired discovered the true cause of why an officer screamed he has my gun.
An officer had hooked his gun on a car mirror and misinterpreted it as my child hooking or grabbing his weapon and therefore that officer, I think under guilt, he made an honest mistake, took his own life in 2010.
And that's why we're trying to make this system better.
I'm not anti-cop, I'm pro-law enforcement, but I'm very pro-truth.
Well, and look, I mean, the fact that the cop who, as you say, apparently honestly mistakenly said he's got my gun, shoot him, took his own life.
I mean, that would tend to indicate that, geez, there was something there.
I mean, as you said before on the show, an honest mistake, though it may have been in that moment, they had already needlessly escalated the conflict up at that point.
I mean, your son, he's in his own front yard.
Why don't you tell us about just what all happened there?
Why did he get pulled over?
November 9, 2010, my son was out with friends.
There was a designated driver.
The designated driver was under the influence.
My son decided to drive home.
You can see through the dash cam at Michael Valdon, my son was driving perfectly straight.
He saw a squad car on the side of the road.
He did 30 miles an hour.
He stopped at, he pulled up in front of his own home.
He turned off the ignition, and he was in a natural motion of just getting out of his car when an officer pulled up behind him.
Moments later, the officer's making accusations that he ran a stop sign, but this is an officer that had another experience with Michael just six weeks before, so we feel that this officer and a number of officers were laying in wait for Michael that night.
To make a long story short, my son was tased.
He ran to the back of his home.
His mother and sister were upstairs.
They heard a commotion.
They came down.
They saw a Rodney King-style beating of my son in the backyard.
There were four eyewitnesses in that location and another eyewitness just 50 feet away.
There was bright spotlights on the matter.
My son was bent over a car, held in a bear hug, in handcuffs.
An officer screamed, he has my gun, and a new arriving officer walked up to him, placed his gun directly to my son's temple, and fired a deadly shot, taking his life.
Instead of coming back and saying, our cops made an honest mistake, they decided to play a narrative another way, which ended up causing them a lot of problems.
They ended up settling a $1.75 million civil rights lawsuit in 2010.
I refuse to accept a nondisclosure confidentiality agreement, and therefore I am here today telling you that these files are open.
This is not a cold case.
There was criminal activity, and we want to make sure that the United States knows about this.
And so wait, which was the criminal activity, if it was an honest mistake leading to the pulling of the trigger here?
It was the obstruction of justice that occurred afterwards, where the department came together, used their intellectual and financial resources to try to avoid the truth.
Our attorneys knew from the beginning that Michael was shot on the right side of the head because that's what the forensic pathologist had discovered, but the police testimony, which was completely contradictory to that, was their official narrative until we caught them lying during depositions.
And so those video depositions, some of them are online.
You can go to Plead for a Change on YouTube, you can see a number of our videos there.
You can actually see the officers testifying under oath of what the truth was.
After four officers said the same thing, our attorneys gave them a copy of the forensics report and asked them to read a paragraph on camera.
And that paragraph was in complete contradiction to everything that they had done.
And so now they had to try to come together and how do we make this better?
So they created two videos.
First thing that they did is they had to take my son and they took a man that played my son and they took his head and twisted it 180 degrees so they could shoot at him, but they're actually shooting into the holding officer.
And then because the imprint on my son's forehead didn't match up, an officer had to go to a firing range and said, now we had to shoot him gangster style.
We had to take the gun and hold it upside down to make things work.
There were six different versions of their testimony under oath and that's what got them in trouble.
And then, I mean, I'm sorry, because it's kind of a minor detail, but so what was it exactly that made his claim that he was standing on your son's right so important that he couldn't just say, yeah, you know what?
You're right.
I was standing on his left, but the other officer's gun got caught on the mirror on his right.
And so I had, you know, whatever, whatever, what his, his denial of his responsibility hinged on him being on your son's right side.
Is that it?
The officer that was holding my son, um, was what had him bent over a car and there was another officer to his right.
And because he had the ability to see that the officer didn't have, my son didn't have his hand on any gun.
You do know that there were no fingerprints or DNA on any gun or holster that this officer had a right to just separate.
If my hand, my son did have his hands on a gun just to separate them, but no, he took his gun and stuck it directly to my son's temple, tried to fire a shot, but he couldn't because he had pressed the gun so tightly to my son's head, he disengaged the slide.
He had to take the gun away and then put it to my son's head a second time and then and fire that shot.
And so, uh, that's the problem is that they went right to the most deadly force that they can.
This wasn't just a police shooting.
It was a police execution and that's the difference here.
And you're saying from where, you know, he was standing because of the forensics, he should have had every opportunity to see your son's empty hands, regardless of what his partner was yelling about.
He's got my gun that this officer that pulled the trigger could have just as easily said, no, he does not have your gun.
I can see his hand.
Yeah.
And one of the things Scott, it was an honest mistake on the part of the cop that said he got my gun.
It doesn't sound like it was an honest mistake on the part of Gonzalez that pulled the trigger.
I, I, I, I believe this and we've, we've had a family member of one of the officers involved come forward and share the truth that the arriving officer who was Gonzalez who arrived on the scene, he heard people scream, he's got my gun, shoot, he's got my gun, shoot.
He knew that my son didn't have his gun, but his commanding officer ordered him to shoot.
So there you are.
If you're a warrior in combat or you're in a dangerous situation and the commanding officer scream, shoot, what do you do?
Yeah.
He's not a warrior though.
Right.
And your son is not an enemy insurgent.
Well, according to that audio that we released last week, he is calling my son, the enemy and, and you, and those that want to go to a plea for a change on YouTube and see that and listen to that audio tape, you'll, you'll be able to hear a part of that eight and a half.
And that YouTube is also embedded at again, the free thought project, the articles from May 22nd, you'll have to page down just a little bit to get to it, but it's, it's right there.
It's called confronts the cop who killed his unarmed son secretly records it.
So now this is the thing of it.
You had the guy who, uh, the cat or I guess the, was he the Sergeant or whoever in charge killed himself because of his guilt, apparently over falsely accusing your son of grabbing his gun.
Apparently, honestly, mistakenly there.
Um, but the guy that actually pulled the trigger, he's not saying, listen, it was an honest mistake.
And, um, you know, I couldn't see your son's hands, but I had to take my off my commander's word for it.
And I had to do what I had to do.
And sorry, it had to be the way it was.
That's not his take at all.
Right.
His take was basically screw you.
Uh, he actually says in the audio that if he had to do it over again, he would.
And we, and most people, even law enforcement that have listened to the tape to find that extremely alarming, you know, I, I think he was just trying to gaslight me and make me question my own reality.
But you know, you look at the official police narrative, it doesn't line up with the forensics.
There's only one version of the truth and that is the forensics.
And so, um, if, if your listeners go to that audio tape and they listen to it, they'll be able to find a lot of contradictions there.
He aggressively interrupts me as he tells me that he's praying for Michael's mother and my daughter.
He, uh, he claims he's a Christian, but then again, uh, commandment number six, thou shall not kill.
And then, uh, thou shall not, um, bear false witness.
Number nine, uh, are clearly in play here.
So there's, there's so many things going on at a deeper level and we're actually producing a second video to, uh, to compensate, uh, for those discussions.
And we're going to release it probably sometime within the next two weeks.
Well, and you know, I thought that was the worst part.
I'm not sure how you took it, but the part where he was saying, Oh, I'm praying for your family.
I thought, well, what a patronizing jerk, you know, who asked him here?
He's not sorry, but then he's going to intercede on your behalf with God and ask for God to bless you.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot, pal.
You know?
Well, there's a number of other things.
He forgives me for questioning the forensic against his testimony under oath that, that, that was one or another alarming, alarming matter here.
And, and, and the way he aggressively interrupts me as he's telling me he's praying for me.
Yeah.
Those are a number of things.
So we're getting ready to, you know, Scott, you know how rare this is.
Imagine, uh, a police officer confronting the father of a man he killed and being able to have videotape and audio tape of that situation.
It, it, it, it's extremely rare.
And that's why your audience needs to listen to it.
Now, I, I believe that, that the officer is a fairly smart man.
He knew that there might be a digital recorder.
He completely avoids any type of discussion that I have when I call for change.
He, and he, and he also avoids any type of, uh, questioning of the forensics.
Um, but so those are, those are the things that pop up in this very interesting tape between a father and a, and a man that killed his son.
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Well, so what did you expect him to say about the... or were you trying to get him to say maybe it's a good idea, or anything about your project for accountability and change in the system?
He says, you know, this conversation happened a year before Wisconsin passed the first law in the nation demanding that any police shooting be investigated by an outside agency.
So you can hear some of those comments in there.
I want to know the truth, and I continue to fight for the truth.
And I told somebody this morning that this is not a cold case, and we're continuing to move forward, and we're producing a John Doe investigation request to get this matter discovered.
So our family deserves to know the truth on this.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, as you've said on the show before, you know, you put yourself in the shoes of all the people in the world, or all the people in this country, who are in nothing like the position you're in, right?
And I'm not saying you were born rich or own any, you know, local politicians or anything like that.
But you're a retired Air Force officer, and you're white, and you have a little bit of money, won this lawsuit, so you have that money that you can put into doing this.
But you know, there's a lot of, you know, poor single mothers out there whose kid got killed who aren't in anything like the position that you're in to make the kind of case you're making, to interact with the legislature on the level that you're trying to do, right?
So that's the silver lining in this, right?
You're speaking for a lot of powerless people here.
And you can imagine, like I told your audience, I'm a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel.
I flew in three different conflicts for our nation.
And being in combat scenarios, you make some split second decisions that requires a lot of courage.
I assure you that I've had to make decisions regarding my son's case that took far more courage than I ever did in combat.
And so to be able to stand up and go against some very powerful and very influential people knowing that there's retaliation at all different levels, to include even legal if they need to, to be able to make those type of decisions requires a tremendous amount of courage to get this done.
So I'm speaking not only for myself, but I'm speaking for all those families that don't have the makeup and the courage and the resources to get this done.
Scott, one of the things that I wanted to share with your audience was, is we didn't know whether the officer who claimed he has my gun knew about it and didn't share it with the department or knew about it and shared it with the department.
And because he could have actually hooked his gun on the mirror and never told any of the other remaining officers.
And we were very fortunate in, on January of this year, CBS National sent Aaron Moriarty, one of the correspondents from 48 Hours, to Kenosha to meet with us.
And we, and we demonstrated to her how the gun got hooked on a mirror.
And at that moment, one of the family members had, had this realization.
She said, and I remember Lieutenant Kruger, the officer who screamed, shoot, walking up to the mirror, removing a 12 inch piece of lanyard or something like that, and then ordering us to look away.
And that had never been revealed before.
So now we know that the department knew about this and not just the man that took his own life.
And so that was another, another important revelation that is a crime because we're continuing to fight for justice here.
And now are there grounds for more lawsuits or you're strictly with the legislative branch lobbying now?
There are more, and I think that's why I'm being blocked.
I've asked the, the city to reopen this investigation.
They refuse to do so.
I've asked the DA's office to do so.
I do see some collaboration between both of those parties.
They're trying to do whatever they can to repress this.
You have to understand that if, if society understands that the DA supposedly did an investigation and they didn't uncover the things that we uncovered, then it was a sham investigation and it was a 56 hour investigation and they didn't.
So they are trying to block it.
I've asked the county executive here in our state, in our own county to, to allow this matter to go forward.
And the first thing he said to me was, you're going to sue the city again and I don't want to put that burden on taxpayers.
And I said, I will even block that.
I will make an agreement with you that I will not sue them if we can get a public inquest and learn about it.
But they've done everything that they can to shut it down.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, maybe you can try, I mean, if you still have standing to have a new case, maybe you can do the thing where you state right up front, you're suing for $1 and the following actions on the part of the officials, that kind of thing, then that way to take that off the table.
I think that's a, I think that's a great idea, Scott, and I hadn't considered that before.
And every now and then it's moments like that, that really allow me to go forward.
And if, and, and, and you're right, if somebody wants that question, that then I will sue for $1 as long as I can find out what the truth is.
That's a really good point that you bring up there.
So one of the things that I found very interesting, Scott, is that back in, if your viewing audience goes to michaelbell.info, you will see two reenactment videos that the police created to try to, try to contradict the forensics, but it just got worse until they finally had to settle.
And these reenactment videos that they created, it took a lot of coordination.
You can see consultants in the background.
They had lighting, they had to get a warehouse, they had to get a car that was very similar to the one my son was killed over.
And so I asked for an open records request in September of last year and saying, what, let me see the communications that occurred between the attorneys, the consultants, and the police department.
And, you know, the city, they charged me $1,300, they gave me 285 records, 783 pages of emails.
And I was confused.
Not one email had any information regarding these videos.
Not one.
And it was a real head-scratcher.
And then about three weeks ago, I received a phone call from a high-ranking individual within the city of Kenosha, and they informed me that those emails were intentionally deleted to block any incriminating evidence against the city.
And so that is a really important matter.
I've taken that to my sheriff in this county, and I've taken it to a sheriff in another county, and I said, look at these, there's a problem here where they're deleting public records to avoid incriminating themselves, and this is unlawful, and that's what we're seeking right now.
And now, so who actually would be the right authority for that?
Would that be the local sheriff's department to take on a case like that?
The city already came forward and said that our city was deleting public records, and that sheriff then ordered, asked another sheriff in another county, because he didn't want to be perceived as biased, to conduct an investigation.
So there's an investigation underway.
They actually confiscated the hard drives of the computers in the city, and they broke into them, and it's my understanding that the sheriff has already come forward and said there's going to be indictments based on these deletion of records.
And so our family is hopeful that our deletion of records are going to come up in there also.
All right.
Now, before we go, talk a little bit about the law that you did get passed and how that's going so far, how that works and has been working.
In 2014, Governor Scott Walker signed the first bill in the nation, was called Act 348, and that ordered that all law enforcement agencies in the state of Wisconsin, about 700 of them, cannot investigate themselves in a police-involved shooting.
Essentially, an outside agency or an outside expert has to come in.
It could be the Department of Justice, it could be feds, it could be anybody, come in and conduct that investigation.
The department that did the shooting cannot investigate themselves.
It didn't branch into things like maybe county jails or prisons where officers might be involved with some other death, but it has to do with deaths regarding police officers and sheriffs deputies in the state of Wisconsin.
And it was the first law in the nation.
And there was a number of shootings that happened afterwards, and we've had to investigate them.
There was actually an officer fired in a very famous case nationally, it was called Dantre Hamilton, and he was killed at Red Arrow Park in Milwaukee.
He was a black man that was sleeping outside a Starbucks, and an officer, two officers came up and met with him, and they took his life not too long afterwards.
And so, that is what we ask for.
We have been working very hard here, and May of last year, we held a summit in Wisconsin, and we invited the chair of the national, or it was the director of the National Transportation Safety Board, we also had the director of NASA's Aviation Safety and Reporting Systems, and we also had a doctor from Harvard that talked about their learning models and how they might apply to law enforcement.
Because what happens in law enforcement is they shoot somebody, they aggressively defend themselves, they don't go back and look at all the circumstances that led up to the death, and then they don't share that learning model with anybody, where as in aviation, that's a different story.
If there's an accident in aviation, they look at all the circumstances that brought this person to be deceased, and then they issue recommendations on how to stop it from happening again.
And aviation is far more deadly than law enforcement, if you take a look at OSHA standards, and so therefore, if we did have the same type of learning model in law enforcement as we had in aviation, we would be able to see a reduction in the number of deaths.
So those are the things that we're all looking at here in the state of Wisconsin.
Right on.
All right.
Well, thanks again for coming back on the show, Michael.
I really appreciate it and all your great work.
Thank you very much, Scott.
And I'll keep you advised if we're able to get a John Doe hearing open.
If we're able to get a breakthrough, I'll keep your news team advised about what we're doing here.
Okay?
Absolutely.
Thanks very much.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Thank you.
All right, you guys, that's Michael Bell.
The website is michaelbell.info.
And right there, you can see the documentary, Forensically Impossible, Anatomy of a Police Cover-Up.
It's right there, michaelbell.info.
And again, at thefreethoughtproject.com.
Dad confronts the cop who killed his unarmed son, secretly records it.
And they have the embedded YouTube there with the audio.
And you can also find the plea for change account on YouTube has that video as well.
All right.
So you guys know the deal, foolserend.us for the book, scotthorton.org and youtube.com slash scotthortonshow for all the interviews, 4,500 of them now, going back to 2003 for you there.
Read what I want you to read at antiwar.com and at libertarianinstitute.org.
And follow me on Twitter, at scotthortonshow.
Thanks.
