It's later with Mo Kelly can if I am six forty, We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. Obie had a great weekend, I know I did.
The weather was beautiful, had a good weekend working out. I was
watching all the videos that Tuala put up he and his family went to Disneyland.
I was only kind of jealous, not really jealous, because I wondered
how many lines they had to wait in for so long, And I said,
well, it's just good enough to watch the videos that he was posting.
I know his family had a wonderful time, but there's this I was
thinking, over the course of the weekend, what are these schools going to
do? I saw how law enforcement had to clear out another encampment at USC.
I saw the more recent news how Columbia had canceled its campus wide commencement
and is opting for smaller school focused graduations. But it reminded me every single
school campus from coast to coast, is going to have to make a decision.
Unless you're USC, you've already already made that decision. Columbia made that
decision. Can you anticipate, can you control? Can you handle what may
happen on your main commencement day. There are some schools which don't have a
singular commencement day. For example, you see Irvine. You see Irvine has
a School of Law ceremony on May tenth. They have the School of Medicine
on May eighteenth, the School of Nation on June fourteenth, the School of
Social Sciences on the fourteenth as well. They have the School of Information and
Computer Sciences on June fifteenth, the School of Engineering on June sixteenth, June
seventeenth, the School of Arts. I mean, it's just graduation after graduation.
At the graduation, why do I mention UC Irvine. Well, if
you go to the KFI Instagram page, you will see one of our reporters
be led around the campus and the encampment by one of the protesters. They
are settled in. They're going to be there for the foreseeable duration. Their
intentions obviously are to be there throughout all of these graduations. How disruptive they'll
be, I don't know, but it says to me that every single campus
in southern California and beyond will have to make a decision, and they'll have
to make it sooner than later. Do you try to clear them out,
and does clearing them out mean that's the end of the problem. We're gonna
check in with kfi's own Chris Adler, who was on the campus of UCLA
earlier today. And we all know that USC has cleared out encampments twice.
UCLA cleared out the encampment last week. We reported to you Live on that,
but then protesters came back today and you heard Mark Ronner during the news
report signal how forty or so protesters were arrested again today. This should say
to you and me and everyone else that this is not over in the sense
of people who are willing to protest. Will the protests lead anywhere? I
still seriously doubt it. Now. I will admit that Brown University those students
were able to negotiate some sort of settlement to vote on divestment in the future.
But those students did not gain anything here in California. Nothing even approximating
that has happened. No strides forward have been made on USC's campus, on
UCLA's campus, on UCI's campus. This is not over. And I can
also say that this is not going anywhere. But all of these universities are
going to have to make a decision and fast. What are you going to
do? Are you going to try to squash the encampments and risk the blowback
that UCLA has had to deal with. Do you want to deal with what
usc has had to deal with? Do you want to try to ride it
out, which seemingly, seemingly U see Irvine is trying to do maybe the
path of least resistance, if you want to call it that, but whatever
it is, you're going to have to make a decision because clearly these protests
are not only coordinated on some level, they have enough people power, and
we know that it's more than just students. We now can be honest with
one another. This is just not about students only. We have outside individuals
who are not students. You can call them agitators, you can call them
paid protesters, whatever you want to call them. They are part of this
equation. They are participating in multiple, multiple protests, They are probably connected
to multiple campuses. And so what are you going to do? U se
Irvine? Because I saw that encampment on Instagram and I said, wow,
it almost looked like an apartment complex. Not trying to be funny, but
it was elaborate in nature. It was very clear that there was some planning
this time around. Maybe they learned something from USC. I don't know,
maybe they learned something from UCLA, but I did notice, at least on
UCI's campus, there was a media where there was going to be a much
more concerted effort to talk to members of the media to somehow present a more
cohesive and coherent message. Will that change anything, I don't know, but
it does seem like they might have been listening to me or someone else.
I remember when I spoke to Chris Adler last week. They mistreated, at
least on UCLA's campus. In USC's campus, they mistreated members of the media,
and they were loth to actually have a conversation with members of the media
and be able to put forth a message that people could understand and get behind,
and their message subsequently got lost in the midst of violence on some level
and vandalism, And so I would say they did themselves a greater disservice than
they did help themselves along in this endeavor. There's been no public comment or
public decision made by UC Irvine, but I know every campus has to consider
this because these protests can pop up anywhere at any time. They are coordinated
in nature, and I know they're going to be planned to pop up during
these graduation ceremonies, the main ones, the satellite ones, the small ones,
the various schools. They're going to be there and they're going to be
visible, and they're going to be disruptive. Hopefully these schools have learned something
and they know how to handle it. If UCLA did anything to help these
other campuses, be it UC Irvine or Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Riverside,
what have you. If UCLA did anything, it should have given all
these other places a primer, something to go by, what to do,
what not to do. But ultimately they're going to have to do something because
the protests are not going away by themselves. When we come back, wing
to check in with Chris Adler, who spent much of the day at UCLA,
and get her read on what happened, who got arrested, and where
it goes from here, at least on UCLA's campus. It's Later with mo
Kelly canf I AM six forty. We are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty
last segment, I was basically running down what the nation was looking like in
the wake of many of the protests last week. I touched upon how Columbia
had canceled its commencement. We talked about last week, how USC has a
quasi commencement celebration going on at the coliseum. And I was looking at the
news today. I was looking at actually Chris Adler's feed, and she was
at UCLA, and it seemed the protests came back earlier today. But what
is up with that? Joining us right now is camfi's own Chris Adler with
her on the ground coverage, Chris, fill me in what happened earlier?
Today came well. Today was supposed to be the first normal quote unquote normal
day back to campus since the clearing and the arrest. Over two hundred people
were arrested after police moved in last week to clear out that camp that had
been there for days. And since then, it was supposed to you know,
classes were canceled, they were moved online, and today was supposed to
be that first day back for normal day back. But this morning, early
this morning, pro Palestinian protesters were back on campus and forty more than forty
of them were actually detained in a parking structure for what the Ellet County Sheriff's
Department said was a violation of curfew. These protesters in the structure also did
not want to provide their identities. They would not tell deputies whether or not
they were actual students. We saw video and we heard a faculty member actually
declaring herself a faculty member who was one of the people out there in support
of these protesters who were being detained. And so there were about there were
more than forty taken to the Van Night's Detention Center to the Van Nuys Jail
afterwards. And then following that, there was a sit in in one of
the buildings where about maybe fifty to sixty protesters gathered for a sit in calling
on the university to divest, calling on a boycott of Israel. And those
protesters marched throughout the campus this morning. They were probably I say, I
would say it got to about maybe one hundred protesters at one point, marching
throughout the campus, chanting say anti Zionist remarks, and police were watching closiya.
The Schurch department was out in tactical gear with pickup trucks waiting for any
kind of vestilation, and just kind of watching Jane's unfold. Mo. We
saw LAPD take the lead, or at least visually seemingly take the lead last
week, last Wednesday, But today you're telling me that the presence was predominantly
or all La County Sheriff's deputies. I didn't see any LAPD on campus this
morning during these protests. It was La County Shriff's Department again in tactical gear
and pickup trucks, in large trucks where it looked like they could put a
lot of detainees if necessary, and lots of campus security scattered throughout the campus,
kind of marching like, following behind the protesters, keeping an eye on
them, planted in various spots throughout the campus. This was La County Shriff's
Department, along with several patrol cars, several campus PD officers. But no
LAPD was seen this morning, Moll. I wonder, though, given what
happened last week, and given I guess the reluctance to have last week happened
again, did these students try to i'll say, re incamp in front of
Royce Hall. What does that area look like? No, I was.
Actually I was in front of Royce Hall this morning. It's still barricaded off,
but there are safety officers standing along manning that area, in that grassy
area where that encampment was, but they are not allowing anybody to walk in
walk through. I was talking to a security officer just scanning out. He
was standing behind the barrier and I'm on one the other side of the barrier,
and I was like, wow, just looking at it. They can't.
It's completely cleared out. The vandalism has been covered up. They are
still tying up some loose ends and clearing up some minor things, but the
majority of it has been completely cleared out. It's a completely different scene mode.
It's empty. There's not a single tent in sight. It's been completely
wiped out, you know. It's it's there's some spray paint, some paint,
this coloration of the grass where the camp was, but it's been completely
cleared out. They are not allowing anybody to go in there though. They
want to make sure that there's no other camp get set up outside of Voice
Hall again. Over the weekend, you and I informally went back and forth
with some listeners on my Instagram talking about the protesters, the perception of the
protests versus various protests in history, and I made the point that these protesters
at UCLA didn't exactly seek out or try to treat the media. Well,
that was then, what was your experience today? Was there any interaction between
you and this group of protesters? There was. I was able to speak
to one protester who was part of the camp and she was there for the
rally today. She said that there are extremists on both sides. She knows
there's radicals on the Jewish side, on the pro Kalestinian side, but she
says the majority of the people that are protesting, she says, are neutral,
and they are peaceful, and they're there for an important cause. They
want to make a difference, they want to save people. But she said
there are extremists. She acknowledged there are extremists on both sides. And last
week I interviewed several Jewish students who said that they were being blocked from going
into the library, several buildings, and even Assemblyman Rich shavz Dbor, whose
district includes UCLA, is now pushing for an investigation through the Department of Education
to find out if there was in fact a civil rights violation, particularly against
Jewish students MO who were allegedly stopped from entering buildings, and they were asked
if they were quote Zionists supporters, and if they were not, they were
given risk bands and free to enter it. But if they were Zionist supporters,
they were not allowed to enter. So there is an investigation that is
being pushed in that sense. But as we spoke, and you know,
during my life it's last week, they were very hostile towards the media that
were shining lights in my eyes. They didn't want us there, they didn't
want police there. Today it seemed a little bit more friendly towards the media.
I'd say they were willing to speak with us today, at least very
quickly. I got about thirty seconds left. Do we know, since this
protest led to other arrests and it didn't seem like they got any they gained
any ground as far as their demands, what is next for this group of
protesters as far as you know, well I can tell you mode they were
chanting, we will not go, we will be back. When the arrests
were made last week, protesters as they were in handcuffs, said we will
be back. They vowed to be back, and we saw them back.
They were there this morning and they said they will continue to rally. They
will continue to occupy the campus until the UC system divests in Israeli connections and
boycott's Israel. So from there from their mouths, they have no plans of
letting up on these protests. Mo, Well, we shall see Chris Adler.
Thank you for the fantastic reporting, and of course kf I will continue
to follow this story wherever it may lead. Chris, be safe out there,
and I'm sure we'll do it again sometime soon. If they're committed.
We're committed. Did you know it? Moo, have a great night.
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI Am six forty.
By now you've probably seen the video. The video of the woman who was
caught on camera attacking a bus driver a dash bus driver in South LA took
place yesterday, and kudos for the bus driver fighting back because clearly no one
wanted to help her. Happened around one pm yesterday at the bus stop near
South Central Avenue and East thirty fifth Street. If you know that neighborhood.
It's not a nice neighborhood. The bus driver took care of business. And
if you haven't seen the video, I just posted it on threads at mister
mo Kelly if you just need to see it. The easy conversation is this.
The easy conversation is we need to pet our bus drivers. I've had
that conversation any number of times. That's the easy conversation. It's easy to
point and say something needs to be done. But tonight I want to have
a more uncomfortable and I would think more difficult conversation. The video has its
place. I'm glad someone got video footage of that assault. If anything,
it makes the adjudication the legal process that much easier, and I would hate
for that bus driver to have gone through that and there be any type of
what I would call reasonable doubt. I'm glad from what I understand the bus
driver wasn't seriously injured. But here's the more difficult conversation. It's easy to
point, and it's easy to say something's wrong. But I think we need
to be more honest about or failings here. There's something or actually a bunch
of things wrong with our society. Like I said, the video has legal
value, but there's no excuse for no one trying to intervene. Nobody tried
to help that woman out, not because she was a woman, but but
she was for the most part defenseless and being attacked for what we could tell
This homeless woman who was attacking her did not have a weapon, and it
was The video goes on a long time. No one is trying to intervene.
It says, not only is there something wrong as far as violence in
our society, there is something wrong with us as a society. We are
bereaft of honor and dignity. I would hope that if I were in close
proximity, I would have attempted to do something, guide in between them,
pull the homeless woman off, the bus driver, something. But we are
now as a society, a bunch of voyeurs. We're a bunch of onlookers.
We're a bunch of people who are sight seeing and just kind of gliding
through life, looking at the car wreck, the proverbial car wreck as we
drive down the freeway. How did we get here? I honestly don't know.
The easy thing to say is, oh, just blame it on the
internet. Oh just blame it on gen z Oh, just blame it on
you know, the failings of the Democrats. That's the easy, that's real
easy. The more difficult conversation is to look inward and say, hey,
why did nobody help? Why is it when we see these videos time and
time again nobody ever helps? It seems like, and this may be anecdotal,
but it seems like every time I see these video of these fights in
which you have a civil servant getting attacked, there are people watching, maybe
cheering on, definitely have their phones out, but not really doing a damn
thing. And I don't need someone to go Bernard gets if you get that
reference, I know Mark Ronald does. I don't need you to do that.
But there should be something inside of you which says I need to do
something. Throw a rock, you know, try to pull them off something.
Because for me, and if I were to envision myself in that situation,
that bus driver again, I take everything very personally in nature. That
bus driver is my friend, that bus driver is my colleague, that bus
driver is a relative. That bus driver is probably one degree of separation from
me. If it's not someone I know, it's someone who knows someone I
know how did we get here. We didn't get here overnight, but I
damn sure know we've been here wherever here is for a really long time.
And everyone that I've seen talk about this story, everyone that I've heard discussed
this story has run. And I don't say this as a criticism. I
say it as just something that I'm aware of that I noticed something that I
saw. Everyone said basically the same thing. LA's going to hell. No,
La has been hell for a while. But we're all citizens. It's
not just over there we are. Are we citizens? Are we active participants
in the society? Are we watching a video game? Are we on the
outside looking in? Or are we looking at fellow citizens as extensions of ourselves.
It was the bus driver today, Tomorrow it could be someone you know,
someone you love. Maybe the bus driver is someone you know and someone
you love. It shouldn't have to get that personal before we realize we have
a collective responsibility for the fate of this city, not just law enforcement.
That's their job. Again, I'm not saying go Bernard gets we don't need
a whole Howard Beach situation. And I'm not even saying, like the marine
who was on the train. I'm not saying go out and kill someone.
I am not saying that. I am saying there are things that we can
do with what we have right where we are to at least let our fellow
citizens know that we care about one another. If we don't care about one
another, then how the hell is this supposed to get any better? Buy
it. We cannot get a different politician which is gonna make it right.
You can elect all the Republicans you want. That's not going to change what
happened on that bus. If none of us care enough about each other to
help one another in the time of need, we can get We can hire
more police. We could have police on every single corner. We could turn
this into a police state that doesn't address the problems inside of us, that
does not address the issue of us being bereft of dignity and honor. I
mean, the whole idea of a good Samaritan doesn't even exist anymore. For
the most part, we're too busy pulling out our phones. We're not calling
nine to one one, We're not intervening on a very basic level. How
long did that video go? And I don't know who was videotaping that I
don't know. I don't know. It could have been someone's grandmother who physically
could not have intervened, But I didn't see anyone coming from the weak from
the wings. Sit in the middle of the street, broad daylight. A
bunch of people were watching out of frame. I don't know this for a
fact, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. A bunch of people were watching
and thinking, let me get video of this so I can go viral.
Be damned someone's safety. Let me get something so I can sell it to
some news outlet and get paid. Let me do this so I personally can
benefit. While this bus driver, who happened to be a woman, I'm
not saying that she was incapable of defending herself. In fact, she was
kicking some ass. Let me be clear, she was throwing as best she
could. But this bus driver was all alone in that moment, and there's
no reason in the world that she should have been. It's later with mo
Kelly can if I am six forty We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
In fact, I have more I want to say about this when we come
back, and I was I love to get the thoughts of some of the
other men in the studio because we have these conversations off air, but I
think we need to have it on air when we come back. You're listening
to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty, a show
programming note. La County Supervisor Catherine Barker, who we spoke about last week,
how she gave her public concern about the Metro and how she felt that
it was unsafe to ride by herself. Well, Supervisor Barker will be joining
in the program Wednesday evening. She will be calling in. Just got word
that she has been confirmed for Wednesday. But it also kind of runs parallel
to this conversation. Before the break, I was talking about the La Dash
bus fight between the bus driver and this reported to be homeless woman and this
clear video which was shown and then I put it. It was on Fox
LA. I reposted it on threads if you haven't seen it, to give
some context to what I'm talking about. There were two conversations to have,
just to quickly recap. There's a easy conversation, Oh my gosh, how
horrible is LA. We need to do something to protect our civil servants public
servants. Yes, I agree, with all that. That's easy, you
know, that's just pointing and say see, look at that, it's dangerous.
That's an easy one. The more difficult conversation, I think is looking
at our collective societal responsibility. No one tried to help, no one tried
to intervene, There were no weapons involved. It was clear that this was
just a homeless woman who could have been taken down by somebody, pushed away
something, but instead, and I was making the argument that we are a
society that is bereft of dignity and honor. We've lost it, we've given
it away, but we don't have it anymore. I think we are a
society of onlookers. We are spectators in like a video game where NPC's nonplayer
characters in a video game, we don't serve any real purpose in the welfare
of our fellow man and woman. I thought that this deserved a larger discussion,
and I think we as men, men in the studio, may look
at this a little bit differently than women. Now, yes, I'm actually
playing the gender card right here to walla sharp your first up, what did
you think when you saw this video? One? The video bothered me because
it wasn't video from the dash bus. It was video that someone took out
their camera and they filmed this. Now, I will say this, I
have ridden the dash bus and right near where I live there as a dash
bus stop and I see the individuals that are primarily riding the dash bus.
They are primarily older Angelinos and they are primarily women that I see riding.
I rarely see young men or men riding the dash so I wonder who is
taking the video. I had to take that into consideration because I'm thinking to
myself, last time I was on the dash I may have been the only
guy on the dash two. The thing that I noticed, and this stood
out to me because of all the reporting, was the barrier that was between
the driver and the attacker. And that is the exact same barrier that they
are talking about releasing on Metro or installing on Metro. And I said,
that barrier did nothing to protect that driver. Is that what Metro drivers can
expect if that's the only protection they can get. But like you, if
I had seen me Tawhila was riding that I would have grabbed that woman and
gotten her off the bus. I'm not gonna sit there and let someone going
off, because you can see the altercation. You can see how the driver
did nothing to provoke that that was uncalled for. That woman had gloves on
hands, that's about it. She easily could have been taken off of that
bus. Mark Runner, you're up. Well, you can't look at something
like this without thinking about the Kitty Genevi's case. And anybody of a certain
age was haunted by this when they were kids, and it was before my
time. It was from the mid sixties, but it's the famous, almost
an urban legend where a woman in New York was raped and killed while people
in the surrounding apartments looked on and didn't do anything and didn't call for help.
Now, in the intervening decades, some facts have come up that have
come into dispute, but that still doesn't alter what that says about people and
our responsibility to each other, and how absolutely horrifying it is when we don't
do anything when we I mean, you know now that we all have Instagram
on our phone. Even animals help each other when they're in trouble, and
so when people don't rise to the occasion like this, it is just the
lowest, most disgusted thing imaginable, And I don't know how you could look
yourself in the mirror for the rest of your life. If you were right
there in that situation and you didn't say anything or raise a finger while somebody
was being hurt like that, it would have been different if someone said something,
tried something, anything, tried to diffuse the situation, something, and
we got absolutely nothing. And running the technical aspect of the show today is
Tony Santino, who was in for Stepan. Tony, I am curious about
your thoughts as well. I got thoughts. Well. The thing I wonder
about it is they shot that from the outside right, you know, so
was that person on the bus seeing something going on and then kept recording once
they got it, they got clear of it, you know, That's what
I felt like to me. But what I keeps sticking in my head though,
is like there was that New York subway guy who you know, killed
that olmost guy because he was holding him down, right. You know,
it's like when you're trying to hold someone down, something bad happens, it's
now you're blamed, and you know it's or something that happens to you now,
and it's like I don't know. I don't know the right answer.
Do you do you think that's a part of the calculation. People don't want
to get involved because they're afraid they might get sued or hurt themselves. I
can understand if you're worried about your physical being. I understand that. But
in this situation, maybe I'm I'm assessing a threat a little quicker than the
average person. Yes is yeah, it's a homeless lady. It's like,
yeah, come on, come on, now, as far as assailants go,
you've got a good shot against certain Yeah, he probably hasn't eaten it
a while. No, she's not gonna have a lot of stamina. Now
Here's now here's the thing. And and to Tony's point, because this woman
obviously looked out of her mind, you and I mo Mark, Tony,
we may approach this differently because of our backgrounds, and that a side.
The average person, who may not have the wherewithal to react quickly if a
weapon is produced, may look at that and say, this lady is obviously
out of her mind. I don't know what she may pull out of her
pants, be at a straight edge razor, a knife, anything, And
then they're thinking about their own own safety. So I do not advocate for
anyone to jump in. I have an issue with someone standing by filming it
just for to me social media, because that was they weren't filming that so
it could go on Fox local news. They were filming that so they could
post it somewhere. I don't like that part about our society. I don't
like that spectator part. If you have enough wherewithal to pull out a phone
and record it, you have enough to at least stand in and say,
hey, hey, enough, stop that. I'm telling the police. Anything
we did heed that. No one said doll nine one. One saw none
of that, heard none of that. I just saw two people scrapping,
and I'm glad the bus driver was not seriously hurt. But I am sure
that we are seriously deficient as a society in caring for one another. It
doesn't matter if you can if you're concerned about crime, but you won't help
your fellow man or woman. It doesn't matter if you think crime needs to
go down and we can hire more law enforcement. If you don't actually care
about one another. We can't police ourselves out of this. We have to
take some ownership and responsibility for our own damn community. It's Later with mo
Kelly can if I AM six forty Life Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're
listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty