During a wide-ranging interview on his radio show with LA veteran Slade Douglas, former congressman and KBLA radio show host Jesse Jackson Jr. said that he would fight for better laws to protect LA citizens subjected to unwarranted and unjustified abuse by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Jackson told Douglas that he would work with Tavis Smiley, bestselling author, longtime broadcaster, and advocate, to meet with LA Mayor Karen Bass to push for a public policy response related to the California 5150 mental health code to make sure Douglas and others didn’t ever have to face the horrific experience he had faced.
“I will reach out to the mayor’s office and also reach out to Brother Smiley to see if there are any meetings that we can get to address appropriately any kind of public policy response to these 5150s; maybe we can even pull together the Veterans Administration,” Jackson said, “so when they call 911, everyone understands that there are consequences to these SWAT tactics. We’re not going to lie down and continue to take this. So, count on me.”
Douglas was awarded a $6.8 million verdict against the LAPD and city of Los Angeles for violating his civil rights and swatting him. The lawsuit stemmed from an incident in August 2019 when Douglas was arrested by Los Angeles police officers at his apartment after the officers were sent to the apartment by a call from an employee of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who was angry that Douglas had filed a discrimination complaint against the agency.
As Jackson listened to Douglas’ story, he was appalled. “Wow, I’m sitting here completely struck by the interaction. I didn’t realize until this moment that the entire process had been videoed. What was that profound disrespect and violation of your constitutional rights and your space?”
Jackson continued the conversation, acknowledging Douglas’ knowledge of the law. “Let me share with you how impressed I am with you,” Jackson said. “When I went to law school, obviously I had to study and understand the Constitution in order to graduate. When I was elected to Congress for 17 years, I advanced new constitutional amendments and predicted that there would become a time in this country; some people refer to my book, A More Perfect Union, written in 2001 and updated in 2019, actually as prophetic. In Congress, I saw this coming and became, next to John Lewis, a historian of the Congressional Black Caucus—our struggle—and now your knowledge of human rights and constitutional rights based on experience and having been wrongfully arrested and mistreated in the process, your understanding and appreciation of the Constitution on this, its 250th anniversary, is a fundamentally different prism and a fundamentally different insight on the significance of the documentary.”
During his radio interview, Jackson praised Douglas for his service to America as a veteran and his resilience. He describes Douglas’ documentary, “The Veteran They Tried to Silence,” as, “… a powerful investigative documentary grounded in documented facts, legal filings, official records, and verifiable evidence. The film chronicles Douglas’s personal fight against institutional abuse, discrimination, and retaliation, shedding light on the broader injustices faced by veterans at the hands of government actors.”
Jackson added, “We have a landmark case here because of your character; you understood the constitution, and you knew what your rights were because of your demeanor in which you took care. I want to congratulate you on all of the mustering of the character. I think it was Viktor Frankl who said, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space we get to choose our freedom.” From the moment you were stimulated and violated and rights were withdrawn from you, there was this space where you got to choose your response, and your response was to cooperate with the officer and let them handcuff you, and then the violation exacerbated itself; it only got worse, not only breaking a series of laws but also to the point of torture and conspiracy to deprive you of your rights under the code of law … it’s something to be said about all of us who, in that moment where we are stimulated in that space, have that little space right there to choose our freedom.”
Douglas also spoke out against what he described as defamatory reporting by the Los Angeles Times and thanked Tavis, Jesse, and the KBLA family for being a pillar of the community and the nation, for speaking truth to power, and for helping build a stronger, more informed, and more united America.
Watch the interview on the Jesse Jackson Jr. Show: https://www.youtube.com/live/O-BMlc7MZr8
Watch Slade Douglas’ documentary, “The Veteran They Tried to Silence”: The Veteran They Tried to Silence: https://youtu.be/X1Q99Er0n0Y
Read the “Slade Douglas Offers Detailed Analysis of His Case”: https://www.politicsincolor.com/slade-douglas-legal-team-offers-details/
