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SUKEY LEWIS, HOST:
Every time police are called and something goes wrong...
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TIM GANNON: It's my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their Taser, but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet.
LEWIS: ...Like someone says officers used excessive force or violated their code of conduct...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We have opened an internal affairs investigation into this.
LEWIS: ...Police chiefs and officials usually come out and say the same thing. We're investigating.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We'll share with the public everything that we are legally allowed to share.
LEWIS: For decades here in California, those internal investigations, which are how the police hold themselves accountable, were secret. As a criminal justice reporter, I never got to know if a cop was disciplined. The families of those killed by police weren't allowed to know all the details of their loved ones' deaths.
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LEWIS: But then all that changed.
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MARK SEAMANS: My name is Mark Seamans (ph), an independent investigator retained by the city to conduct this investigation.
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JIMMIE RYLAND: And for recording purposes, I'm Sergeant Jimmie Ryland (ph).
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JOSHUA DOBERNECK: I'm Sergeant Joshua Doberneck (ph).
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: This is Sergeant Jeff Franzen (ph), the internal affairs sergeant.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: We are in the Internal Affairs Office interview room.
LEWIS: In 2019, the state passed a new law that unsealed records about police shootings, on-duty sexual misconduct and dishonesty. The new law promised we'd finally get to listen in on these interrogations.
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UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER #1: I have told people things before in the past to make them think that shit like that was going to happen to them just to scare them.
LEWIS: We'd get to see body camera footage...
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UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER #2: We're going to arrest you. Stop resisting, OK?
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LEWIS: ...Look at photos and documents...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: You had taken a picture in uniform with your penis hanging out. Is that correct?
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER #3: Yes, sir.
LEWIS: ...And hear witness interviews.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: And he just kept punching me until my teeth came out of my mouth. Like, that's attempted murder. He could have killed me.
LEWIS: And we talked to the people behind the records - the victims of police sexual harassment and the families of those killed by police.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: I said, is my son still alive? And they said, I'm sorry to inform you, your son is deceased.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: I gave him a look like I hope you realize you just crossed a line, and I don't have to say that out loud.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: I didn't realize that anybody was even aware of what's been going on here. They've been trying to cover it up.
LEWIS: Every step of the way, police unions, departments and cities have been fighting to keep these records secret...
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTORS: Release the documents.
LEWIS: ...By filing lawsuits, redacting pages and pages of documents or just ignoring us.
So did you get my last couple emails?
So we sent emails, and we called, and we kept calling.
So if you can call me back and let me know what the best...
We even sued.
And we haven't gotten any kind of response or communication at all.
Then a little over a year into this project that we were doing in California, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis...
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: ...Died in police custody...
LEWIS: ...And Breonna Taylor was killed in Louisville...
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: ...Shot eight times.
LEWIS: ...And people all across the country, and even around the world, came out into the streets to call out police failures and racism in its ranks and to demand justice...
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTORS: Don't shoot.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTOR: Hands up.
LEWIS: ...And ask, how did we get here? Why has the system that's promised accountability failed to deliver it for so long?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: We have a system where police officers fight tooth and nail to keep all of this information about misconduct away from the public.
LEWIS: I'm Sukey Lewis. This is ON OUR WATCH, an investigative podcast from NPR and KQED. Each week, we'll take you inside a different internal affairs investigation to find out how this system of police accountability works and what went on inside these secret investigations for all those years when no one was watching.
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LEWIS: New episodes drop weekly starting Thursday, May 20.
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