There are a lot of things. I'm playing in a Central Park sandbox with my four-year-old daughter. Sneak under here. Yeah. When I see a police officer approaching the edge of the playground, and my body instinctively stiffens. Something comes over me, and I start wondering, Aniola, may I ask you a question? What do you think the police do? They keep people safe. I mean, that is what the police say their job is. She's just repeating what she's heard. But when I hear her say it, I start to panic. It's the cover story, and it's hiding something. The first person to use the term organized crime, he didn't mean it in the sense of Don Corleone and the Mafia. He meant it in terms of the police Department. From Wundry and Crooked Media with Push Black, I'm Chinjirai Kumunika, and this is Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD. At a time when we're debating where policing is going, we're going to tell you where the police came from. They wanted me to write about the New York City Police Department, but without using the words violence or corruption, which is effectively impossible. A story of how the largest and most influential police department in the country became one of the most violent and corrupt organizations in the world.

It doesn't matter if you're a self-emancipated law person or if you're free. They're just sending people back to the South, kidnapping them. It's the story of what the badge was really created to protect and who it really serves. The police are not the system itself. They are the muscle of the system, right? When officers with the power to fight the danger become the danger. I was terrified. I'm not going to talk to the police because they're the ones who are perpetrating this. Who am I going to talk to? How New Yorkers have to forge their own visions of safety and go to war with the police. Let your model be resistance, resistance, resistance. He's basically calling for a slave rebellion. Arm slave rebellion? He doesn't say that, but what rebellion would it be without them? I'm not really about them. Follow Empire City on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Empire City early and add free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.