Light 'Em Up

Thank you so much for joining us! Our global footprint has expanded to over 74 countries!
On this intense episode of Light ‘Em Up we delve into the deep, dark recesses of the brain and investigate the psychopathology of criminal behavior, mental illness and drug addiction.
We probe and investigate why people commit crime.
We are “on the record” with Dr. Doug Smith, DFAPA, Medical Director for the Summit County (Akron, Ohio) Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board. “Recovery starts here” - as it states on the ADM web site found at www.admboard.org.
The ADM Board is responsible for planning, funding, monitoring and evaluating treatment, prevention and support services for people who experience alcoholism, drug addiction and/or mental illness. We touch on some of the pillars of the “Stepping Up Initiative”, which is a pioneering collaborative program in The U.S., started right here in Summit County, involving judges, chiefs of police, social workers and clinicians.
At least 50% of individuals in prison on the state and local levels have moderate and/or severe mental illness – far higher than the general population, so, clearly there are pervasive issues as it relates to the connection of incarceration and mental health. Dr. Smith expressed that through their collective efforts, “The ADM Board labors daily to do their collective best to get people into care and treatment and not incarcerate them” – to “break the cycle of mental health issues feeding the criminal justice system and helping people to be diverted from incarceration and improve their quality of life and away from an institutional setting”.
“If we can figure out how to get people into treatments and treat their cycles of addiction and break their disease, we will stop the crimes,” he says.
“People need help – drug addiction and mental health suffering is not a moral failing on a person’s part – it is a brain disease. We wouldn’t make fun of someone suffering from cancer or any other disease, we shouldn’t stigmatize or belittle those who suffer from mental illness, PTSD or any disease of the brain, including addiction.”

In this explosive episode we drill deep and investigate:

• The push factors why people commit crime: What is different in the brain of individuals who commit crime(s)? Oftentimes, criminal behavior is carried out to fuel an addiction. A person is either in the active process of: using a drug, obsessing about the drug or doing anything to acquire the substance, including robbing and even killing to acquire it.
• We probe the deep, dark crevices of the criminal brain and the psychopathology of Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer (from Barberton, Ohio) who cannibalized his victims and investigate his dark, anti-social personality disorder issues that fed his insatiable necrophiliac desire to perform sex acts with the corpses of his murder victims.
• What if a person is suffering from “command hallucinations” where they hear voices, and what do you do if those voices tell them to kill?
• Killing and a lack of remorse: A person who possesses malignant narcissistic personality disorders coupled with a severe lack of remorse can commit horrible acts of violence, such as a bloody murder, then walk away from the crime scene, go home, make themselves a sandwich, turn on the TV and relax as if nothing has transpired.

I sincerely hope this episode educates, empowers and edifies you and provides you with some insight behind the crime scene tape as to what a Forensic Psychiatrist does, the types of clients s/he works with, and the problems that their patients suffer from.
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Thanks, Executive Producer Ph

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On this special intensely focused new episode of Light ‘Em Up we drill deep and focus the light of the truth on Asian Hate Crimes and the fear that has gripped the AAPI communities across our nation.
On February 27th in only 120 minutes 7 New York Asian women (all members of the AAPI community) were attacked.
The FBI defines hate crimes as “criminal offense[s] against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
These are not random attacks – they are targeted and intentional.

Brutal hate crimes have resulted in the deaths of 4 New Yorkers recently.
A 62-year-old grandmother, GuiYing Ma, was brutally attacked with a large rock while sweeping the sidewalk in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, NY in November, 2021. So severely beaten, she laid in a coma from late until dying on February 22, 2022.
On January 15, 2022 a homeless man in an unprovoked attack shoved Michelle Alyssa Go, 40, to her death in front of a Times Square subway train. Go was hit by the train and then run over.

On February 13, 2022 Christina Yuna Lee, 35, was stabbed 40 times and left to bleed to death on the floor of her apartment bathroom by an attacker who pushed in the door after following her home. The individual arrested for this heinous crime has a lengthy prior criminal history having been arrested 7 times in the past 7 years and suffers from a history of mental illness.
Yao Pan Ma, a Chinese immigrant, was beaten to death as he collected cans in East Harlem in April of 2021 – he died of his injuries on New Year’s Eve, 2021.
On Tuesday March 16, 2021, Robert Long was accused of shooting 8 people to death, 6 of whom were of Asian descent, in Cherokee County and Atlanta, GA.
Aggression and hatred towards people of Asian descent is nothing new in the United States. America has a past deeply rooted in fear, hate, and violence. A dark cloud of hatred has cast its shadowy grip over America.
If you really want to track the genesis of hatred directed against Asians and Asian-Americans, it can be traced all the way back to the Page Act, in 1875. The Immigration Act of 1882, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, provided for the exclusion from the United States of ALL persons from China – which wasn’t repealed until 1943 - to the internment of Japanese, many of which were U.S. Citizens from 1942-45.
Light ‘Em Up has uncovered that in 16 major cities across the country, anti-Asian hate crimes had more than doubled between 2019 and 2020.

After each incident, Asian-American groups and elected officials have come out in force demanding more be done to address violence against members of their community.

Will it take more policing or better social programs to seriously address this crisis?

An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. We all should be deeply concerned.

We’d like to thank our friends at Feedspot, as recently we were honored by being ranked #10 in their most recent poll out of the 40 Best Criminal Justice Podcasts. Visit their blog at www.Feedspot.com or simply follow this link:
Best 40 Criminal Justice Podcasts You Follow in 2022 (feedspot.com)
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Happy New Year to each and every one of you!
We ended 2021 being downloaded in 84 countries – what a fantastic accomplishment!
Thank you so much for helping to pave the way for us to reach this tremendous milestone.
We’re extremely proud and excited to launch Season 3 with this episode! This by far is our most ambitious episode with so many new features for our exclusive elite members and subscribers! Thank you to Apple Music & Pandora for this unique opportunity!
In a time of division, facts unite. In a time of uncertainty, facts provide clarity. We know that the truth dies in the darkness.
As we continue to shed light on difficult topics and as we approached the 1-year anniversary of the brutal attack on our Capitol and democracy – we focus the intense light of the truth on Hate and Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE), with a special focus on The Proud Boys.
From Pittsburgh to Poway and Charlottesville to Charleston, HATE – and its divisive nature --seems to be everywhere. HATE seems to permeate the very fabric of this country. HATE has always “sold well” and been a foundational characteristic of this country. HATE has a firm grip on our society: From slavery and the slave trade; to the genocide of Indigenous peoples, and the Indian Exclusion Act; to The Chinese Exclusion Act; to Executive Order 13769, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”, a.k.a. the "Muslim ban" by ex-US President Donald Trump, which was nothing more than an Executive Order to discriminate.
I truly felt and still feel to this day that this country is “closer to Civil War than it ever was since April 4th, 1865, when the Civil War ended”.
Sadly, HATE crimes have been growing in number in recent years in the U.S. The FBI says that HATE crimes are at their highest levels since 2008. More murders which were motivated by HATE were recorded than ever before.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there are at least 838 Hate Groups in America. The Proud Boys are one of them. In this episode, we define exactly what a HATE crime consists of. We explore just who are The Proud Boys, what they believe, what are some of the things they have done.
The attack on The U.S. Capitol on January 6th was born from HATRED and it came from within – it wasn’t from a foreign entity or power – it was “home grown domestic terrorism”.
In a sea of an enraged, blood-thirsty, violent mob of seditionists, all Trump supporters -- members of The Proud Boys descended on the Capitol with their guns, bats, knives and shields. The neofascist Proud Boys, who claim to be “past the point of peace and crazy enough to actually do something about their perceived wrongs”, had an outsized impact and effect on much of the violent chaos and mayhem that we witnessed on January 6, 2021.
Light ‘Em Up takes an in-depth look at an insurrectionist mentality that is becoming normalized and more popular in our country. A new type of political movement that has emerged from the rabid right has extreme violence at its core. Its proponents are emboldened to commit violence, and it is coming from the mainstream, which includes white collar workers: lawyers, doctors, business owners and architects, soccer moms and homemakers. Tens of millions of Americans say they are willing to use violence to “change things” according to their way of how they feel things “should be”.
We share in-depth information that only “Light ‘Em Up” had exclusive access to.
As we mark the 1-year anniversary when democracy was on the brink of collapse. we learn from history – that we don’t learn from history. And America and Americans have a very short memory.
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We’re extremely humbled and excited as we have now pierced 82 countries with our podcast. Thank you to every person who has taken the time to be a part of our broadcasting family.
Some interviews are work. This interview was enjoyable.
Taking the witness stand today we have the high privilege and distinct honor to speak with Mr. Art McKoy, a tough-as-nails Vietnam Army veteran who for more than 50 years has been the outspoken lightning rod leader of Black-on-Black Crime Incorporated.
Black on Black Crime Incorporated’s mission is to help draw attention to the issue of crime, poverty and violence in Greater Cleveland, Ohio. To help make our communities safer, to provide positive alternatives for young people and assist whoever asks for help to the best of its abilities, as well as reducing the incidence of Black-on-Black crime, of course.
Art has been an outspoken critic of the Cleveland Police Department, a flag bearer and firebrand for truth, justice and peace in the inner-city of Cleveland, as well as a staunch community activist and civil rights leader for many decades. He has long “spoken the truth” about the police, both the “over-policing” and “under policing” in communities of color impacting upon the city. Art is a hope-dealer! Just landing Art on Light ‘Em Up was a huge achievement. Art’s schedule is extremely busy, (we got him for 50 minutes) but he was very gracious to speak with us the day after election day, when Cleveland made history once more by electing its youngest ever Black mayor, Justin Bibb. Art said, “We needed to get rid of some of those old folks from City Hall - those that “go along to get along”.
We drilled deep on:
♦ How to move the City of Cleveland forward and the biggest problems that need to immediately be pursued with the new administration.
♦ How he’d bring “social justice” closer to the people of Cleveland if he was the Mayor or Chief of Police.
♦ What is the City of Cleveland doing about its young men of color being gunned down in its streets?
♦ Why the City of Cleveland has a problem with women-of-color going missing.
♦ Fixing the Community Relations Board.
♦ The Voinovich Rule.
♦ Building a coalition between the predominantly Black east side and predominantly White and/or Hispanic west side of Cleveland.
♦ His thoughts 9 years after Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams were shot at 137 times and murdered by Cleveland Police.
♦ Issue 24 (which established a Civilian Review Board to review Cleveland police actions taken in the line of duty).
♦ The endless struggles that the police have in policing themselves.
Art knows better than most that Cleveland and communities of color (in general) have been witness to and “are suffering from too much pain.” He is a survivor of a vicious attack in 2018 in the doorway of his own place of business, in East Cleveland (The Superfly Barber Shop) where he was “sucker-punched” by an enraged customer, over a “5-dollar line” (touch-up hair cut) that he was providing to a young patron. The punch shattered Art’s lens to his eye, broke his nose and he was left for dead. 6 months later, by the grace of God, he recovered!
Art is a survivor, a warrior, and a good man. He is known by the deeds of the people who he has helped. Art is “pressing forward”. He knows all too well that “justice comes to those who fight, not those who cry”. Art has been and always will be to us “The Real McKoy”.
You can find Art on Facebook at The University of Common Sense and you can hear him every Sunday night on WERE 1490 AM from 5pm to 7pm where he hosts The University of Common Sense. Art for 14 years hosted the #1 radio show “Black on Black Crime” on 1100 AM WTAM.
This is an interview you certainly do not want to miss.

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Our worldwide footprint has EXPANDED! We’re currently debuting in more than 73 countries!

Thank you so much to everyone who has tuned in across the globe – we’d be nothing without your support.

On this smokin’ hot, new episode of Light ‘Em Up ...

We have the high honor and privilege to sit and talk with a true role model – a dear friend of mine and a highly decorated, dedicated career law enforcement officer with 4 decades of exemplary service to the citizens of the great City of Cleveland, Ohio.

During times when law enforcement is taking a rightful beating for the actions of more than a few, it is great to talk with a true hero who has maintained the highest standard of public service and has labored extremely hard daily --- having kept his nose clean for 39 years.

He’s the recipient of The Officer of the Year on the B shift –

● The Medal of Heroism –

● The Medal of Valor –

And ...

● The Public Safety Hero of the Year –

The bright light shines down as we are in the interrogation room with Retired Cleveland Police Department Sgt. Victor Hayes.
All who know him and love him refer to him lovingly and respectfully as “Crown Vic”.

We drill deep on:
From his roots in the deep south of Dallas County, Arkansas where many members of law enforcement were entrenched in organizations such as The KKK -- and being terrified of police -- to starting his career in public service as a fire fighter in Maryland, and investigating crime on the mean streets of the City of Cleveland, Ohio, to recalling countless times when he made decisions that kept people out of prison – he shares with us his experiences and professional insight on:
● What has happened to policing? Have the wheels come off of the “policing bus”?
● We discussed some of the current hiring dilemmas that plague policing and discuss why it can be so difficult to find "quality, qualified candidates" to serve.
● How can policing practices promote healthy crime reduction while building the public trust?

● We can’t get away from the fact that the origins of the police in this country were to serve as slave patrols -- organized groups of armed men who monitored and enforced discipline upon slaves in the antebellum U.S. southern states.

● We inquire if 21st century policing has shed the foundational concepts of how it originally perceived and reacted to individuals of color?

We all know and have had a front row seat to witness, unfortunately “the few can define the many” – 1 bad apple can spoil the bunch:

● How do we go about weeding the bad seeds out of the profession?

● What do we want our police to do?

● Are we expecting too much from them, to be social workers, emergency medical practitioners, and keepers of the peace, simultaneously?
♦ We explore some ideas for trying to reduce the incidents of active shooter events that we see daily across our county.

And we talk about U.S. v Cleveland (the consent decree): The Cleveland Police Department and The Department of Justice entered into a consent decree which requires the Cleveland Police Department to make a number of fundamental changes to its policies, practices and procedures to address these issues in light of the murder of Timothy Russell and Ma’lissa Williams in 2014.

All this and so much more! You are in a zone car on the rough and tumble, means streets in the City of Cleveland, Ohio with Retired Cleveland Police Sgt. Victor Hayes.
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Tune in and enjoy!
Thanks much!
Executive Producer
Phil Rizzo

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