Transcript
Into America
UPDATE: Into Injustice for Breonna Taylor
Trymaine Lee: The Louisville Metro Police Department committed widespread civil rights abuses against Black people, women, and people with disabilities according to newly-released findings from a federal investigation.
Archival Recording: The department has concluded that there is reasonable cause to believe that Louisville Metro and LMPD engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution. There is also reasonable cause to believe that they engage in conduct that violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Safe Streets Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act
Lee: The Department of Justice, under the Biden administration launched the investigation in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor who was shot to death by Louisville Police Officers in her apartment three years ago.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the findings at a press conference last week.
Merrick Garland: Shortly after we open the investigation, an LMPD leader told the department, Breonna Taylor was a symptom of problems that we have had for years. The Justice Department’s findings and the report that we are releasing today bear that out.
Lee: The investigation dug into some of the controversial practices that factored into Breonna’s death, like no-knock warrants and searches based on falsified information. Garland said they found widespread abuses in those areas but the DOJ uncovered a lot more than that.
Garland: LMPD is relied heavily on pretextual traffic stops and Black neighborhoods. In these stops, officers use the pretense of making a stop for minor traffic offense in order to investigate for other crimes. Some officers of demonstrated disrespect for the people they are sworn to protect, some have videotaped themselves throwing drinks and pedestrians from their cars, insulted people with disabilities, and call Black people, monkeys, animal, and boy. This conduct is unacceptable.
Lee: The report also says that LMPD had a pattern of mishandling domestic abuse and sexual assault cases and contains allegations of misconduct by officers. And while Louisville has a trained unit dedicated to helping people experiencing a mental health crisis, the report said police often treated these people as criminals, mocking them as unnecessary force.
LMPD has had four police chiefs since Breonna Taylor’s death. There’s a new mayor this year. And over the last three years, the city is implemented some reforms to the police department.
Garland: A limited pilot program started sending behavioral health professionals to certain 911 calls and the city has expanded community-based violence prevention services. LMPD has also announced plans to revamp its training support for officers’ health and wellness and internal auditing. These efforts are commendable and we credit Louisville Metro and LMPD for acknowledging the change is necessary. But more must be done.
Lee: Garland said both Louisville and the police department are cooperating and will be entering a consent decree with the government, a binding agreement designed to hold the department accountable to reforms.
Garland: The Justice Department recommends 36 remedial measures that provide a starting framework for changes that are necessary to improve public safety, build community trust, and comply with the Constitution and federal law.
Lee: While the contents of the investigation may seem shocking, Black Louisville residents weren’t surprised at all.
Hannah Drake: I’m going to tell you this and some people might not like it, I told you so. We told you so. Black people being knew. Black people been told you this and you didn’t want to listen to us. Instead, y’all called us thugs. In fact, some of those very people, our Metro Council called us thugs and you know who you are.
Lee: After the findings were released, Louisville activist, Hannah Drake, posted to TikTok.
Drake: Am I vindicated? Yeah. Am I satisfied? Not yet.
Lee: And this week, Hannah told us she’s reflecting on what it meant to see all these abuses laid out in an official government document.
Drake: The police specifically targeted and terrorized Black people. To see those words in writing, you inherently know that being Black in this city and probably Black people across this nation. But to see it in writing, one person in the report have been stopped by the police over 50 times, a 14-year-old boy had a police dog gnawing away on his arm. You know, I thought about the civil rights movement, those images that we see of dogs, you know, attacking Black children and it’s the very same thing in 2023.
Lee: We first spoke with Hannah in September 2020, just a few months after Breonna Taylor was killed. As a speaker and author, Hannah helped to elevate Breonna Taylor’s story on social media early on and she was part of an effort to push the city council to pass Breonna’s law, a ban on no-knock warrants.
Drake: I don’t think the backwards and don’t think this city will ever be what it was before Breonna Taylor was murdered I certainly am not the same person that I was several months ago. It has changed me as a person.
Archival Recording: Breonna Taylor! Say her name! Breonna Taylor! Say her name! Breonna Taylor! Say her name! Breonna Taylor!
Lee: I’m Trymaine Lee and this is Into America.
This Monday, March 13th, mark three years since Breonna Taylor was killed. So, we’re revisiting our conversation with Hanna Drake from 2020, and afterwards, we’ll give you an update on how Breonna Taylor’s name has become a force for justice in the years since her death, to see how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.
Twenty-six-year-old Breonna Taylor was killed on March 13th, 2020, when officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department burst into her apartment with a battering ram during a botched drug raid. Police say they announced themselves, but according to her boyfriend, they didn’t. So he fired a shot hitting an officer in leg. Then officers returned fire and struck Taylor multiple times.
The Louisville Metro Police Department have received court approval for this type of no-knock warrant, meaning they could enter Breonna’s apartment without warning. The orders were later changed for police to identify themselves and whether or not they did is part of what was disputed in this case.
Six months after Breonna Taylor was killed, a Kentucky grand jury decided that none of the officers involved would be held responsible for her death.
Archival Recording: Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. I know that many in Louisville and across the Commonwealth and country have been anxiously awaiting the completion of our investigation into the death of Ms. Breonna Taylor.
Lee: On September 23, 2020, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron who still holds the office today announced a grand jury decision to charge one former officer, Brett Hankinson, with first-degree wanton endangerment. He was accused of firing into nearby apartments and endangering Taylor’s neighbors. And later he was acquitted although he now faces federal civil rights charges and that trial is scheduled to begin this summer. But Cameron said the other two officers involved, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove, would not face any charges.
Daniel Cameron: According to Kentucky law, the use of force by Mattingly and Cosgrove was justified to protect themselves. This justification bars us from pursuing criminal charges in Ms. Breonna Taylor’s death.
Hannah Drake and I caught up the day after the grand jury decision was announced back in 2020.
Drake: I was disgusted. I think, inherently, you know, as a Black person in America, you understand how most of these things go when there is a police shooting, but it was still disgusting to hear this announcement for people that have been protesting for over 100 days. Out of the three officers, well, really four, if you count Joshua Jaynes who wrote the initial warrant, only one of those officers was fired.
So, it was if they haven’t fired the other three, then they’re certainly not going to charge on the other three with anything because they’re still on the job. Hankinson was the only one that was fired. And I think, essentially, many people, even some officers, could agree that this was a bad police officer. This wasn’t his first incident.
I think it was expected that it wouldn’t be favorable, but I think it’s just another insult to injury for him to be charged of wanton endangerment, for firing into an upper apartment and not firing into the home of Breonna Taylor.
Lee: Y’all have showed up and showed out pushing to elevate Breonna Taylor’s name but here we are. How is the city doing?
Drake: I think the city is disappointed and angry but I do believe this is also a city that is divided. This is a city that has been divided and Breonna Taylor just made that even more evident. But I think there are certain group of people, certainly the protesters and others that are very disappointed in what happened yesterday.
Lee: So, Breonna Taylor was killed on March 13th, coinciding with the official start, as we consider it, the lockdown, right? Two days after the NBA suspended a season because of coronavirus.
Drake: Yeah.
Lee: And I wonder, you know, from being there on the ground, what the response had been like, right? What the reaction had been like because it hadn’t really made national news. It was in the news but it had become the Say-Her-Name moment that it is today. What was that initial reaction response?
Drake: The initial reaction was very silent. And I, particularly, do not let our leadership off the hook because it was COVID or still is COVID but because we were in the process of shutting down because as the leader you’re supposed to be able to handle more than one thing at one time.
And when the police are involved in a shooting, then it’s important that we know that but that certainly wasn’t how it was reported. In my mind, there was this active cover up. All we were told in this news briefing was there was a shooting and there was an, officer was shot and we hate when officers have to fire their weapons, and there was someone that was killed in the shooting.
And then as more things came out just over couple days, it was that LMPD killed a Black woman. My friend told me that and I said repeat to me what you just said. And he said the LMPD killed a Black woman. And so, then I started looking into, okay, what happened and started sharing this on Twitter and Facebook and trying to get attention around it. And it really just was not getting any attention. It actually didn’t get any attention until after the tragic murder of George Floyd.
Once that happened with George Floyd, when he was murdered and then it was like the nation paused and started looking, then I believe Breonna Taylor’s case started picking up steam. And I’ve always said Breonna Taylor had two things working against her, she’s Black and she’s a woman.
I think for far too long in in this nation, in this world, Black women have simply been disregarded Black women have been the help, Black women have been the cleanup women, Black women have been the person that’s supposed to fix it. Black women are always seen and tagged as being the strong Black woman.
And so, were never allowed to cry or say this is hurting me or you have done something to me that if an injustice. We’re never given the opportunity to simply just be the victim. And those two things working together will always be on the uphill battle to get justice. And now we see, even now, even with all the say-her-name efforts, she’s still, in the end, did not get justice in Louisville.
Lee: You know, Breonna Taylor’s killing brings to the surface a bunch of issues, systemic issues, policy issues and policing. You have the no-knock warrant, you have the way warrants are delivered, and the way we police our communities. Were there certain aspects of this case, in particular, that you think reveal the holes and flaws in the system and the way black folks are policed?
Drake: I do. I certainly think, even when we start with Breonna Taylor and the gentrification of this Elliot Street neighborhood where Jamarcus Glover, which is the person they were essentially looking for when they got these no-knock warrants, lived and constantly was getting told to leave this house and was told, according to him, you can take your business elsewhere but you can’t be in this house.
And so, I went to that home and put a sign on the door that said a Black woman was killed for this home because this unit was working with the city to remove people from Elliott Street. So, when we think about that, we need to think about the gentrification that has happened in this community.
We need to think about how the no-knock warrant was signed and five were signed in less than 15 minutes. Did you even bother to read them? The day Judge Mary Shaw signed that warrant, Breonna Taylor didn’t even know that she was a dead woman walking. And from the top down, I think the leadership needs to change.
And so now, of course, they’ve gotten rid of Chief Conrad, Chief Schroeder is here until her retires, October the 1st. And now Yvette Gentry, who’s a Black woman, will be the police chief. But I believe is just for six months and then they will see what happens as they do this a national search for a police chief.
And so now, we have a Black woman in that position and I still challenge her because even though you are a Black woman, I understand that you are a police officer you’ve been a police officer, I believe, for 20 years. And so, this is your family.
And so, I want to still hold her accountable. But I think from the top down some of the leadership in Louisville certainly needs to change because they’ve just been floating and comfortable and I think it’s time for many people in leadership here to be uncomfortable.
Lee: So much of the contention around this case is focused on this issuing of a no-knock warrant. So, police could go to Breonna Taylor’s home kicking the door and service warrant. But police also say that later, it was changed to a knock and announce where they were going to the house and announce themselves. With all this back and forth, neighbors saying, you know, most of them say they didn’t hear the police announce, the police say they did, what role does that play in all of this?
Drake: When I think about the no-knock warrant, even to serve the warrant and I believe was after 1 a.m., I think it’s easy. We understand the police having a warrant to arrest somebody or a warrant to search a home. But you simply announce yourself and that would have avoided much of these problems.
I think when people even listen to the 911 call from Kenneth Walker which was so heartbreaking to me that he is screaming help, you can tell he is screaming it so loudly and I always wonder he’s screaming for help and I wondered how he felt to realize that it was the police that killed Breonna Taylor while he’s in his house screaming for help, you hear him saying I don’t know who came in to the house.
Operator: 911 operator here, what is your emergency?
Kenneth Walker: I don’t know what is happening. Somebody kicked in the door inside my girlfriend.
Operator: Okay. Where are you located?
Walker: 3003 Springfield Drive, Apartment 4.
Operator: 3003 Springfield Drive, Apartment 4?
Walker: Yeah.
Drake: So, I think people have to realize that this was a no-knock warrant, that Kenneth Walker says all they heard was banging at the door. This is the state, as many states, have the Castle Doctrine. If you enter someone’s home, they do not know who you are, you have a reasonable time and think to defend yourself and your loved ones. This is what he was doing.
If the Castle Doctrine is applied in Kentucky, then it needs to apply to everyone. It needs to apply to all people, to have the right to defend their homes. You can’t have no-knock warrants and the Castle doctrine together because they are juxtaposed. Because if you don’t knock and you enter someone’s home, nine times out of 10 that they’re going to defend themselves.
So, Kentucky, at least Louisville did, made up its mind that these two things don’t go together. And now, we’re trying to push for Breonna’s law to be statewide. And this is what people need to understand, even when we speak about race, when we started discussing Breonna’s law, it was not, this is Breonna’s law and this applies to Black people. It was Breonna’s law to ban no-knock warrants and it applies to everybody in Louisville because we don’t want anybody to go through this again.
And what this world needs to understand is that when Black people get justice, everybody gets justice.
Lee: After the break, more of conversation with activist Hannah Drake on the long fight for justice in Louisville. And an update on where things stand three years later. Stick with us.
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We’re back with more of my conversation with Hannah Drake which we taped on September 24th, 2020, the day after a state grand jury decided not to bring charges against the Louisville Metro police officers shot Breonna Taylor.
So, Attorney General Cameron yesterday announced that the two officers who shot Breonna Taylor would not be charged and that only one of the officers, Brett Hankinson, the same officer was fired from department would be charged with wanton endangerment for shooting his gun and endangering Taylor’s neighbors, not Breonna Taylor.
For all those folks in Louisville were waiting for this day, for some announcement, what was the reaction to that announcement?
Drake: You know, I was down in Jefferson Square Park and they were playing the announcement on a loudspeaker and I just sat, put my head down, and waited to hear what we knew would be coming. There was a silence in the park like it was a calm before the storm. You were waiting for this moment and to hear people crying and people yelling about how unfair this was, but to look around and see so many Black women just crying broke my heart.
It was like we knew that this city has, once again, said you do not matter here. There was an attorney there and they asked for the attorney, come explain what he just said because I think for some people was truly just unbelievable that this officer will be charged for shooting into an apartment upstairs from Breonna Taylor’s and then to hear the bond, $15,000, it’s just another insult after insult after insult and the energy was so sad, it was just like a realization of the inevitable had come over and then I think, after that people got angry and that’s when we decided to march.
I don’t want the city to think people were angry last night, and okay, let’s have mint juleps now. People are angry, they’re angry today, they will protest today, they will be angry the next day, they will protest the next day. The city is broken and I don’t think the leadership here understands the extent to which it is broken and needs healing.
But before you have any type of healing you have to have a realization and an admittance that we have done something wrong here and for people to continue to say this is a tragedy it is a tragedy that somebody should’ve been held responsible for.
So, like yesterday when people are asking me what do we do on this? You tell me. I’m 44 years old and at what point will I get a chance to just breathe in this city? Will I get a chance to just to be? Where I get a chance to be at my house and it’s okay. At what point, when is that going to come for me? Another 40 years? I may not have another 40 years.
When is that going to come for my daughter who’s scared? When will that happen for my niece who’s eight years old? Will she see it? Because I know I’m fighting for something clearly every single day that I will never see the fruits of ever.
Lee: You know, I want to dive back to the moment where Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced the grand jury’s decision and Cameron is a Black Attorney General. He’s 34-year-old and he’s a Republican. And I want to get your reaction to what he said. Criminal law is not meant to respond to every sorrow and grief and that is true here.
Cameron: But my heart breaks for the loss of Ms. Taylor.
Lee: And I’ve said that repeatedly.
Cameron: My mother, if something was to happen to me, would find it very hard and I’ve seen that pain on Ms. Palmer’s face. I’ve seen that pain in the community.
Lee: Coming from this attorney general, what was your reaction?
Drake: Laughable. I just —
Lee: Didn’t take that serious at all?
Drake: I don’t buy anything that Daniel Cameron says. I just don’t. He’s not someone that I voted for and, in fact, he’s someone that I actively worked against people voting for. And let me tell you, let me let me say this, that was difficult as a Black woman because I love my people and I want to stand with Black people and it was difficult that this would be one of the first positions one of the highest positions that a Black person would be elected to.
And I cannot celebrate that because your policy is against my very livelihood, that you stand with people such as Mitch McConnell, you’re his protégé, that are doing things to actively harm people that look like me and in fact look like you. And so to say, he would be upset, I find that laughable I do.
I think Daniel Cameron held the city hostage for months, held its emotions hostage, caused us a lot of trauma, caused Breonna Taylor’s mother yet more trauma for her to travel all the way to Frankford to here that we will not be charging anyone with your daughter’s murder. Why even asked her to make the trip? Why bother?
Once again, insult to injury. So I don’t, I think what he says is laughable.
Lee: You talk about this idea of what we’ve seen changing you and you moving to this space and this moment changing you. How have you actually been changed and was there a moment when you realize that you would never be the same?
I think probably about after Breonna’s law passed and we were on the front steps of Metro Hall and people were celebrating and I was happy that Breonna’s law passed in Louisville that bans the no-knock warrant, so hopefully we will never be here again because of the police entering someone’s home and killing them, but in that moment I started to cry because I realize this came on the back of a deceased at 26-year-old Black woman.
I have a daughter and her name is Breonna.
Lee: Wow.
Drake: So, this has been very difficult just even look at my daughter and see her and think this could have easily been my Breonna.
Lee: How much of this case in the sense of grief and loss in all the work and feeling that, you know, there’s a burden on your shoulders, how much of all this is consuming your mental space, your emotional space, your you well-being? How much of this has kind of embodied you?
Drake: Probably 100% of who I am. I eat, sleep, drink it. And I dream about it. But to hear my daughter, it’s very difficult when I hear her, she says I had a dream last night that I was in a traffic stop and the police killed me.
And so, this is all-consuming where you even dream about it. Because it’s all-consuming because it’s who you are, you’re a Black woman.
Lee: Yeah.
Drake: My daughter lives in there, many times I tell her I’m leaving, I would go out of town a lot before COVID and I said the gun is on the dress if anybody comes in the house, you know what to do. You know, these are the directions I’ve given her when I’m not in the house.
And so, it could have easily been my daughter and that’s the problem that a lot of people don’t see with Breonna Taylor and really and truly with Black women, Black people, in general, but particularly Black women. She’s just this saying that that happened to and yet it’s tragic.
And they don’t see that could be me. They don’t see that there’s something fundamentally wrong that you can be sleeping in bed one minute and dead the next minute. And they don’t understand that because they never saw the humanity and Breonna Taylor.
They never see Breonna Taylor someone that can be their daughter. But when I look at Breonna Taylor, I see my daughter. I see myself as a Black woman. And so, it consumed me greatly and will continue to.
Lee: Where you go from here? What happens next?
Drake: You know, immediately, when this happened, I keyed in on the judge. I keyed in on us members of Metro Council that were silent. And so, I know as best that I can that this is a country that supposedly, as they say, believe that people should have the right to vote, exercise the right to vote, and voting is how we change things.
And so, on a local level, that’s my focus, is how do I work on who will be the next mayor. Our mayor will be out of office in two years. They’ve asked for him to resign. They’ve given him a vote of no-confidence. He won’t resign, I’m sure. He will finish out of the last two years.
But we think now, how do we put people in position that care about the people and that really want to see the city move forward. And so anything that I can do to start getting people to think about running for Metro Council running, for small elections, that’s where I really want people to focus on. It’s not just who we elect for governor and president, we need to think about even who’s elected to the school board.
All of these are governing bodies play a part in your day-to-day life. Oftentimes, if not always, even bigger than someone like the president of the United States and we don’t pay attention on a local level to things that we certainly should be paying attention to even in the midst of this, even in the midst of the protesting and Breonna Taylor, our Metro Council voted to increase the police budget. So that shows you where they stand when it comes to our calls for justice. All they did was give the police more money. So I think that needs to change.
Lee: in these dark times in America or we could just call them times in America because times are often so dark, is there anything that gives you light?
Drake: The only thing that really gives me hope is when I look at my niece who’s only eight years old and I think there’s something that I can do to make this world better. I look at someone like my daughter who said when I have children, my kids will not be protesting these very same issues.
And so, it’s my job to do whatever it is that I can do to make the world a better place. And if so, it seems like pie-in-the-sky but I tell people just focus on your small corner of the world and change that space. If you have to change your block, work on that. But everybody has the ability to do something. What isn’t an option is to not do anything. There are people that are hurting, there are people that need help.
We’ve seen through COVID some of the best of us and we’ve seen also some of the worst of us. And I still believe, inherently, that humanity is good and that things can change.
Lee: Hannah Drake, thank you so much for your time. I know you and your city are going through a lot right now. So, thank you very much for joining us.
Drake: Thank you very much for having me.
Lee: Since we spoke with Hannah in 2020, a lot has happened in Louisville. So, we called her up to see how she’s doing.
Drake: One thing that Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s mother said is that every day for her is March 13th which I never forgot. In spite of what happened in September, I think for myself, like I would I still was always going to fight for justice for Breonna Taylor.
It wasn’t like all this happened and then were done and we just give up so. I think every day is a continual fight.
Lee: In August, the Justice Department announced federal charges against three officers for knowingly using false information to obtain the warrant for Breonna Taylor’s apartment.One of the officers has since pleaded guilty.
After the city of Louisville banned no-knock warrants with Breonna’s Law, Hannah helped the campaign do the same at the state level. But the Republican-controlled legislature said the bill went too far… and ended up passing a law that still allows for no-knock warrants in certain circumstances… and has no mention of Breonna’s name.
Drake: When you put these provisions in, therein lies the problem someone will always find a way to circumvent and all we thought that we’re going to go with, we’re going to do and we ran it this way, there’s always an out. We need to stop allowing an out for the police.
Lee: Louisville has had four police chiefs since Breonna Taylor was killed. Interim Chief Yvette Gentry who was about to assume the job when we talked with Hannah in 2020, served for only four months before the city tapped Erika Shields to lead the department.
Shields, who is white, was the first openly gay person to serve as police chief in Louisville. She had come from Atlanta where she had quit after police shot and killed unarmed Rayshard Brooks in a Wendy’s parking lot.
Drake: And so, you have the incident in Atlanta. And now, you come here to Louisville. And so, if it happened on your watch in Atlanta, what would be different here?
Lee: But Shields herself only had the job for two years. In November, Louisville elected a new mayor who appointed his own interim chief, Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel. Chief Gwinn-Villaroel was Black and came to Louisville from Atlanta with Erika Shields said her goal is to repair relations with the community.
Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel: I’m here to serve. I’m here to make sure the department moves forward, and my goal is to dismantle the walls of distrust that has taken over this city. We will do this. We can do this. And it’s time is for us to do this now.
Hannah says Gwinn-Villaroel is in a difficult position as a Black woman leading department that is overwhelmingly white and as a newcomer.
Drake: This did not happen on the new chief’s watch. So, I do not hold her accountable for what didn’t happen while she was in here. But you are here. And so, now I need to understand what you are going to do in this department, something needs to change. And standing up at the press conference quoting Martin Luther King doesn’t do it for me. Sorry.
The city is still searching for a permanent police chief and whoever the chief is will be working with the federal government under the consent decree. Hannah is skeptical that anyone can fix the department without major changes to the force.
Drake: The only way and I know the people will not like this, but the only way for Louisville to even move towards any motion of healing and restoring the city is to get rid of the officers, period. They need to be fired. Somebody will have to explain to me how you reform anything with the same people, and people read the report. They were calling Black people monkeys and animals.
How do you reform when the person that should be protecting and serving me views me as an animal? You will not reform your way out of racism. They need to go. And perhaps, you will hire people that truly care about protecting and serving community that do not see Black people and poor people and people with mental illness as your enemy.
Lee: But there have been some victories along the way. The one Hannah is the most proud of is the campaign to replace Judge Mary Shaw who originally signed the no-knock warrant for Breonna Taylor’s apartment.
Drake: She did not deserve to be on that bench. She had one job and you failed at that job and I was so happy to see that Tracy Davis now holds that seat and she is now Judge Tracy Davis and Mary Shaw does not have the luxury of randomly signing a no-knock warrant any time ever again in this city, and that makes me happy. Very happy.
Lee: And through it all, Hannah still holds on to the hope that what she’s doing now will make a difference.
Drake: I tell people all the time, you are planting seeds for a harvest you may never reap. And in this world, at my age, I believe, I may not get there with you. In fact, I am 100% sure I’m not going to get there with you. But something that I have done, I hope is that I planted a seed for young girls like my daughter, my niece, for young children to know that this world can be better.
This world can be whatever we desire to be. We just have to make it so.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the handle @intoamericapod or you can tweet me, @trymainelee. That’s at Trymaine Lee, my full name. And if you want to write to us, our email is intoamerica@nbcuni.com. That was intoamerica@NBC and the letters U-N-I dot com.
This episode of Into America was produced by Isabel Angell, Allison Bailey, Mike Brown, Aaron Dalton, Ellen Frankman, Max Jacobs, Barbara Rabb, Claire Tighe, and Preeti Varathan. Original music by Hannis Brown. Our executive producer is Aisha Turner. I’m Trymaine Lee. We’ll be back next Thursday.