by Maximillian Alvarez, Hamilton Nolan, and Jacob Morrison | Nov 3, 2026 | labor, Podcast, police accountability, Policing, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Unions, Working People
https://www.spreaker.com/show/2952221/episodes/feed
Far from all the political bluster about police being “defunded,” six years after the earth-shaking George Floyd protests swept the US and public approval for law enforcement plummeted, police have never been more politically and monetarily supported than they are now. But when veteran labor reporters and union activists Hamilton Nolan and Jacob Morrison attended the 23rd Quadrennial Convention of the International Union of Police Associations in Las Vegas, Nevada, they found a different kind of union, and a different kind of convention, than they were expecting…
In this special episode of Working People, we speak with Nolan and Morrison about their August reporting trip to the IUPA Convention in Las Vegas.
Additional links/info:
Hamilton Nolan Substack (How Things Work) and Bluesky page
Jacob Morrison’s Twitter/X page
The Valley Labor Report website, YouTube channel, Facebook page, Bluesky page, and Twitter/X page
Hamilton Nolan & Jacob Morrison, The Real News Network, “Beards and loathing: A cop union convention comes to Las Vegas”
Hamilton Nolan, How Things Work, “We infiltrated a police union convention in Las Vegas”
Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Jacob Morrison:
All right. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. My name is not Maximillian Alvarez. It is Jacob Morrison, host of the Valley Labor Report, the largest union talk radio program in the South.
Hamilton Nolan:
And I’m Hamilton Nolan, a labor journalist based in New York City.
Jacob Morrison:
Hamilton and I marched on the boss and took Max’s microphone so we could introduce the special episode about the recent reporting
by Maximillian Alvarez | Sep 28, 2026 | ICE, Maryland, police accountability, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Racial Justice, video
Residents are shaken and demanding answers after ICE agents terrorized a quiet, suburban neighborhood in Frederick, Maryland, earlier this month. On September 4, federal agents swarmed the Tasker’s Chance neighborhood in West Frederick, invaded the home of one family, and eventually left without making any arrests. ICE agents were filmed beating peaceful protestors and menacingly driving their unmarked cars onto sidewalks and private property while local police officers stood by and watched. In this on-the-ground report, TRNN takes you to the very spot in Frederick where these terrifying events transpired, and we speak with an eyewitness who saw everything.
Credits:Videography: Maximillian AlvarezPost-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.Reporter 1:
Breaking story in Frederick. We have been told that ICE agents have been camped out in the Taskers Chance neighborhood. Neighbors
Reporter 2:
Say ICE has made a move on one home under the cover of night. That’s exactly what you are seeing right now.
Soolah:
There were protestors next to me. There are protestors across the street. And then I turned to this car and it was right here. And then I heard out of the side, the siren go off and I turned and here’s this car coming at me from on the sidewalk. By
Reporter 1:
Friday night, protestors were chanting on the sidewalk, also trying to block the street and a home they believed ICE was targeting. That’s when Santos says ICE became aggressive. This video shows when an ICE officer drove up on the sidewalk toward protestors. Santos and local activist Sula Kemp say ICE officers became violent.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I’m standing here in Frederick, Maryland, just
by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis | Sep 22, 2026 | Abortion, Article, police accountability, Police Accountability Report, Prisons and Policing
Moira Akers was prosecuted and convicted of the murder of a newborn in 2022. She claims to have given birth to a stillborn baby in her home in Columbia, Maryland, in 2018.
Prosecutors doubted Akers’ story, using her online searches for abortion services and lack of prenatal care as evidence of ill intent. But it was a “forensic method” devised in the 17th century that proved key to Akers’ conviction.
The method, known as a “float test,” was designed to determine if a baby was stillborn or born alive by placing the lungs of a deceased fetus in water. If the lungs float, then they are aerated, meaning the baby was breathing and alive prior to their death.
In 2018, former Maryland chief medical examiner Dr. David Fowler signed the autopsy report that, using the float test as proof, determined that Akers’ baby died after Akers asphyxiated it. Fowler also testified in Akers’ trial. Prosecutors used Fowler’s testimony and autopsy report as evidence to convict Akers of second-degree murder in 2022.
Similar to Fowler’s infamous 2021 testimony in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, in which he argued that George Floyd died due to drug intoxication and inhaling fumes from a car tailpipe, Fowler’s citation of the float test in Akers’ case has elicited criticism from the medical community.
Fowler was also the subject of a scathing audit released by the Maryland Attorney General’s office last year, which found that at least 36 cases involving deaths that occurred during police restraint were improperly ruled accidents or left unclassified during his tenure
The float test has been widely discredited as imprecise and lacking methodological
by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis | Sep 14, 2026 | Media Criticism, police accountability, Police Accountability Report, Prisons and Policing, video
Something strange is happening to the cop-watching community on YouTube. The obvious explanation might be YouTube’s enforcement against repetitive, mass-produced or AI-generated content. But the creators we’re investigating aren’t AI channels. They’re filming police, publishing encounters with public officials and, in some cases, using body-camera footage. So what is happening?
In this live stream, cop watchers and First Amendment activists Rights Crispy and Long Island Audit debate who’s behind this demonetization wave.
Credits:
Pre-production: Taya Graham/Stephen Janis
Written by: Stephen Janis
Production: Cameron Granadino/David Hebden/Maximillian Alvarez
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to this breaking news edition of our Police Accountability Report livestream. Now, we decide to do the show because there have been serious widespread disruptions across the 1A and Copwatcher YouTube community, namely a broad and still unexplained demonetization of an array of channels related to both copwatching and First Amendment auditing. Whether this is targeted, random, part of YouTube’s overhaul to its partnership system, what it means for some very popular activists is what we will unpack today. And to help us, we’ll be joined by two influential copwatchers, Long Island Audits, also known as Sean Paul Reyes and Wright’s Crispy or Finn Vargas. Both have been instrumental members of the Copwatcher movement and both have been affected by YouTube’s mysterious move to end their ability to monetize their content, at least on YouTube for now. But before I get to them, I want to check in with my reporting partner, Steven Janis, who has been researching and reporting on what’s happening.
So Stephen, thank you for joining
by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis | Sep 14, 2026 | police accountability, Police Accountability Report, Policing, Prisons and Policing, video
After five years behind bars and in Colorado’s correctional system, controversial cop watcher Eric Brandt is free.
In his first interview following his release, Brandt joins the Police Accountability Report to talk candidly about prison, the sentence that changed his life, his regrets, the supporters who stood by him and whether he still believes in the movement that made him one of America’s most notorious police accountability activists.
Brandt also reflects on his role in helping establish the right to film police in the 10th Circuit and answers a question his critics have been asking for years: did Eric Brandt go too far?
Love him or hate him, this is a side of Eric Brandt few people have seen…Please watch this exclusive interview with Police Accountability Report hosts Taya Graham and Stephen Janis.
Credits:
Pre-production: Taya Graham/Stephen Janis
Written by: Stephen Janis
Production: Cameron Granadino
Post-production: Stephen Janis
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Taya Graham:
Hello, this is Taya Graham and welcome to this breaking news edition of the Police Accountability Report. Now, as I always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. But today, we will achieve that goal with a little bit of a twist and a surprise, an exclusive interview with a controversial cop watcher who was just released from a halfway house in Colorado after spending five years behind bars. His name is Eric Brandt. He’s a Denver activist and advocate for the homeless,
by Mike Ludwig | Aug 11, 2026 | AI, Article, police accountability, Policing, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Reprint
