SDPD Releases Body Camera Footage Of Officer Killing Man In Mountain View Neighborhood

Speaker 1: 00:00 Video is released following a fatal police shooting here of a mentally distressed man, Speaker 2: 00:08 San Diego police come outside. I got it. Speaker 1: 00:11 I'm Mark Sauer with Maureen Kavanaugh. This is KPBS midday edition. Speaker 2: 00:14 Yeah. Speaker 1: 00:24 A new poll shows that may not be a tight race in the 50th congressional district. Speaker 2: 00:29 If both these candidates are spending big money on ads down the stretch, then there must be some internal polling that shows, Hey, look, this race is actually a lot closer than we think. Speaker 1: 00:37 You look at other races and issues facing voters in San Diego's East County. Plus why traditional support for Republicans among the military may be eroding because of Donald Trump. That's a head on midair. Speaker 2: 00:49 Yeah, Speaker 1: 01:01 It was a mental distress call. San Diego police arrived at a house in the mountain view neighborhood, a man 39 year old Jose Alfredo Castro, Gutierrez rushed out the front door and ran it officers in a flash. He was fatally shot. Now video footage from several police body cameras has been released. Joining me to discuss this latest police shooting is KPBS reporter max real than Adler. Max. Welcome to the program. Good to be here. We'll start with who the shooting victim was and why police were called to the home in the first place. Speaker 3: 01:32 39 year old, uh, Jose Alfredo Castro. Gutierrez was a legal permanent resident from Mexico who was a Mexican citizen. He was working in construction and he was living in a home with rented rooms, uh, late one night and actually early in the morning of October 19th. Uh, people started hearing him in a heightened, emotional state. He was screaming. He was asking for help. He was paranoid. Um, and so both a neighbor outside of the house and somebody in the house called nine one one and told the dispatcher that, you know, this guy was in a lot of trouble and they were worried about him. And in fact, the person who was outside the house said that it sounded like somebody was being tortured. Uh, the dispatcher asked them, would you want ambulance to be sent fire department to be sent or the police to be sent? And basically the person answered the police and that's who came Speaker 1: 02:31 Well, let's hear the audio portion of police officers from the video calling out to the victim shortly after they arrived at the scene, Speaker 2: 02:42 San Diego police come outside. I got it out of frame. So 41, me Speaker 1: 02:54 And max explained what happened several different weapons were used. Right, right. So you could hear that he's coming out Speaker 3: 03:00 In the video, he's coming out from the house. Um, it's unclear. He's holding what police leader say was a curtain rod and in a very short chain of events, actually, it all happened at exactly the same time. You had three separate police officers using three separate deterrents. Uh, you have one officer who uses kind of a shotgun like device to shoot a bean bag into mr. Castro. You have another police officer who uses a taser. And then right next to the officer that uses the taser. You have officer Castillo who fires his weapon, killing mr. Castro. So three different things were used for the exact same inciting incident, which was this man running out of a house, screaming, help me Speaker 1: 03:42 And explain the various police officer body cams, what they show and what a security camera on the house shows. And I should say, obviously we're on radio, but this video is posts posted with your story on kpbs.org. But what do they show? Yeah, Speaker 3: 03:58 It shows that this is all in a really quick succession, basically within 10 seconds of them deciding to approach the house. You have officers explaining in English and Spanish saying, Hey, calm down, drop it. And as he's running out clearly, um, in, in mental distress and yelling, help me, they shoot him. Speaker 1: 04:19 Now it's been more than a week since the shooting. How did this a particular video or series of videos I should say, wind up getting released. Speaker 3: 04:27 So the San Diego police department has made an effort in recent months to make sure that body camera footage is released, uh, within a timely manner. Uh, following fatal shootings. Of course, this is expedited when there are shootings that the police department believes, um, were, were appear to be quote unquote justified, where you have an individual who is either pointing a weapon at a police officer, or clearly putting a police officer in danger and, and inciting that, that use of lethal force. This took around 10 days to be released. And that was only after legal representation was found by mr. Castro's family and then several requests from remade by media and their counsel to see the video and have that body camera footage released. So it got released because of the, the public pressure, because we do know that San Diego police department has a completely within their ability to release these types of videos, which are edited within a few hours. Speaker 1: 05:26 And the family of this man who died say he was in mental distress. He's one of three people just this week killed by police while in what's being described as mental health crises, Speaker 3: 05:37 Right? You have protests going on right now after the killing of Walter Wallace jr. In Philadelphia. Uh, this is part of a national trend. Um, according to a study from the, um, treatment advocacy center, people with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely than the overall population they'll be killed by police. Again, that nine call from the neighbor where they're being given a choice by the dispatcher, who to send, um, police, ambulance, or the fire department. Um, this is basically a question that's being asked around the countries who should respond to people in mental health crises. Uh, it shouldn't be the police, or should it be, you know, ambulances or people who have training and deescalation and working with people with mental health issues, because we know that police, um, just don't have that training. Uh, they have to deal with people with mental health issues all the time, but that's just not a priority in terms of what they're being told to do. Speaker 1: 06:33 And that debate is happening here in San Diego is as well. We do have the perk teams here, but we've got a ballot issue of course, on, uh, on police commission and more oversight of the police, which will be coming up next week. And I'm sure this debate will continue now, Eugene Iredale, that's the family's attorney. He concludes this was an unnecessary shooting, but to police and the district attorney's office say at this point Speaker 3: 06:57 Right now, they're not saying much, they just said they're going to be looking into it. Um, and that the FBI will also be involved. The district attorney will decide whether to charge people. I mean, something you mentioned is, is the PERT teams for dealing with people in mental health, um, distress. Okay. So I think a big question would be what was their role in this incident and what, what were they dealing with, um, and why weren't they called to the scene? And if they were on the scene, why weren't they the first kind of point of contact here? Another thing that the da will be looking into is that, you know, the da did charge for the first time in recent memory, uh, uh, San Diego law enforcement officer for shooting somebody while in the line of duty. And that was, this was done over the summer when the da charged a Sheriff's deputy who was running away, um, from, from the jail and shot them in the back. Uh, so that was, you know, a particularly egregious example, but it did show a willingness by the district attorney for the first time in a very, very long time to actually charge an on-duty police officer with murder for shooting somebody. Speaker 1: 07:58 Now, the victim, Jose Alfredo Castro Gutierrez was a legal resident of the U S also a Mexican citizen. You've spoken to the Mexican consulate general about this. What did he have to say? Speaker 3: 08:09 Well, he's very concerned because in fact, this was the second shooting of a Mexican citizen in mental distress in, in the course of, uh, of, uh, just over a week at the, uh, Santa Sutra port of entry last Friday, a man was shot by border patrol agents who was also, uh, in his description in mental distress. So one thing that Mexico is really interested in is, you know, they're, they're not one to say that their own policing doesn't have certain issues, but they do view the treatment of people with mental health issues with lethal force as, as extremely troubling. And they are worried that these investigations will not get a fair shake because these people were not United States citizens. So they say they're going to be very much on, uh, on alert to sure that this is Speaker 4: 08:56 Being done fairly and, you know, without prejudice against the individuals, just because they're not us citizens. Speaker 1: 09:03 And we will be looking for follow-up reporting on this fatal shooting. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter, max Ribble and Nadler. Thanks, max. Speaker 4: 09:11 Thank you. Speaker 5: 09:17 The 50th congressional district race between Democrat Amar camp and ajar and Republican Daryl. Eissa had been called neck and neck a tossup and anyone's guess, but new polling has raised questions about how tight a race. This is a poll out this week from the San Diego union Tribune and 10 news finds. Eissa opening up a double digit lead over camp in a jar journey. Me as KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman, Matt. Welcome. Hey Maureen, tell us more about this UT 10 news poll, Speaker 4: 09:49 Right? Sort of a huge change in the district. After we saw a lot of these polls that were showing them neck and neck basically tied, um, this server USA pull 530 likely voters in the 50th congressional district. Some of those have already voted, but what we, what the survey found was that 51% of people were supporting ISIS and just 40% were supporting camp in a jar with 9% undecided. Now that's a big jump from some other polls where we saw like 46, 47, 42 42. So this one really opening it up, showing that, um, and especially among independents, they found, you know, camp ajar just six weeks ago. Uh, he had a 13 point September lead when it comes to independence, uh, that didn't, this poll turned into a 14 point deficit. So that's a 27 point swing to Eissa. Uh, basically this poll shows that independents are flocking ISO. Speaker 5: 10:35 Well, is there any speculation about why camp and ajar may have lost ground in this race? Speaker 4: 10:40 You know, he did it a sort of controversial interview with a group called defenders County that were formed after, um, some protests and some looting writing, um, over there in Lamesa. Um, and he took some criticism from that for Democrats. A lot of people were not unhappy of the County chair. We heard him say that, you know, some of them are, his views are definitely not in line with our party. Um, but you know, two political scientists that I talked to, one from UC San Diego, one from San Diego state, they don't really seem to think that this has, um, that there's been any sort of one event that's had an impact on this race. Um, they just sort of say, look ice as a well-established candidate. You know, he served, you know, mainly in the 49th, almost 18 years. Um, and, and that he's a conservative, you know, what you're going to get when you get Eissa. And they think that look, Hunter was a damaged candidate when he ran, especially under indictment. And, uh, they, they don't think that this poll is necessarily surprising. You know, maybe the lead is in 11 points. Maybe it's more like five to eight, but not surprising. Speaker 5: 11:28 And that's Duncan Hunter jr. Who represented this particular district for many, many years. Now. It could the fact that so many people have decided to vote before election day. Could that affect the outcome of this? Speaker 4: 11:40 Yeah, because this is a presidential race with president Trump leading the ballot for Republicans, political science experts are expecting a lot of Republicans to flock out on election day. And they're expecting a lot of these male ballots that are coming in California, uh, to go sort democratic. So, uh, some of the political scientists are predicting on election night, sort of like the first returns. You may see a Mar with the lead and then maybe start to see that dwindled down. Um, but basically, you know, I talked to Benjamin Gonzalez. O'Brien, he's a political science professor with San Diego state and he says, look, if you're a Democrat for remark, you're hoping that some of those Republicans just don't turn out. Speaker 6: 12:12 What you're hoping for is maybe that some Republicans and some of those independents who were breaking towards Eissa, maybe they don't turn out on election day. Maybe they change their mind at the last minute. Speaker 5: 12:25 What else do the political experts you spoke to say about the race now, Speaker 4: 12:30 Maureen, they basically say that the fact that there's a lot of money being thrown around in this race, we're seeing, you know, about 17, $18 million already spent inside the 50th district. Now, if you look at that sort of in proportion to the rest of the house races, that is about, you know, it's, it's about number nine, according to open secrets, it's the ninth highest a house race that's being spent on. And if you're wondering, wondering, like, which ones are ahead of that, it's like AOC is race, um, Nancy Pelosi, um, all the big races, Kevin McCarthy that you think about. And then all of a sudden, there it is the 50th congressional race. Now a lot of that is because Daryl Leisa is self-funding his campaign, you know, he's raised about $12 million, 12 and a half million dollars. Um, but of that $8 million has either been loaned or donated by Eissa himself directly. Speaker 4: 13:09 And that goes to about five and a half million dollars that, uh, Mark camp and has been able to raise now, where are they spending that money down the stretch, a lot of TV ads, and both of them are going negative. You know, we see campuses are trying to bring up, uh, ISIS past. We see ISIS trying to bring up camp and the jars past. And so the political scientists think that if both these candidates are spending big money on ads down the stretch, then there must be some internal polling that shows, Hey, look, this race is actually a lot closer than we think Speaker 5: 13:33 What's been the reaction of the two campaigns to this news that Eissa has opened up a lead. Speaker 4: 13:38 Well, no, no surprise coming from the ICIC camp, you know, we heard the former congressmen saying, look, this is no surprise to me. You know, I've been running a campaign based on, you know, I'm a set conservative, they know what they're going to get. And people are finally responding to that. Um, he, he notes that he had a tough challenge in the primary with some Republicans, but now the Republicans seem to be sort of coalescing behind Eissa and he's ready to represent them in Congress. Now, companies are a much different tone, obviously being down 11 points in this poll, he's basically saying, you know, the only poll that matters is election day. Um, and he also points to another poll that was done earlier this month. It was by strategies three 60. Um, and it showed that I say, and campus are we're neck and neck, 42% and 42%, but that poll was done, uh, for the campus to our campaign. And it had a 5% margin of error. Speaker 5: 14:23 So then Matt, less than a week from the end of the election, what's the takeaway on this race? Speaker 4: 14:28 So Maureen part of that survey USA poll 88% of Republicans plan to or already have voted for Eissa. And it also showed that 92% of Democrats, same thing plan to, or already have voted for camp and Azure. So that shows you right there that, you know, Democrats and Republicans are sort of voting along party lines here. Now that's bad for as are he needs. Some of those conservatives need some of those independence and that sort of undecided that 9% undecided here, big chunk of independence. They could be the ones that make the difference in this race. I mean, we know that ice is a known commodity. Uh, we know camp in a jar is obviously a Democrat, but those independence and some of those Republicans that are wondering where they're going to vote and turn out, could have a big deal to do with that. You know, if these Republicans don't turn out on election day, we could see camp in a target, a win here. Speaker 5: 15:09 I've been speaking with KPBS reporter, Matt Hoffman and Matt. Thank you. Speaker 4: 15:13 Thanks Maureen. Speaker 5: 15:21 This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Mark Sauer, the biggest and most consequential election choices in San Diego's East County this year are undoubtedly the 50th district congressional race and the choice of County supervisor in district two. Now we've covered both of those races frequently at KPBS, and you can find our coverage of them in the voters guide section of our website, kpbs.org. But the two big races are not the only election stories coming out of the cities of alcohol and lemon Grove Santee. And Lamesa there are many rural races, lots of city council seats up for grabs and propositions over development term limits and school bonds. Joining me is San Diego union Tribune, East County reporter Karen Perlman, and Karen, welcome to the program. Speaker 7: 16:11 Thanks for having me guys appreciate it. Speaker 5: 16:14 Well, before we get into the candidate races, let's talk about the issues on the ballot. Santee residents are voting on a proposition similar to a countywide one that was rejected by voters in March. What would proposition and do if passed, Speaker 7: 16:30 If pass it allow the voters in Santee to decide on plans that are going to change from the general plan. Speaker 5: 16:36 So it's basically about development. New gets to give the green light to it. Speaker 7: 16:40 Exactly. Instead of the city council, the, uh, the voters will have the say. Speaker 5: 16:45 Now Santi residents are also deciding between two measures that would set term limits for elected officials. What are the differences between those two measures Speaker 7: 16:55 Measure Q was started by citizens and it allows the mayor or city council to only have three consecutive four year terms, uh, and measure R which the city put out in response to the other one, uh, establishes a limit of three consecutive four year terms for city council, but does not include the mayor. The mayor is separate and would have a limit of two consecutive four year terms. So the not included with the citizens measure Q, but it would be separate for the mayor with measure R Speaker 5: 17:24 And I'm assuming there are no term limits now on these on, okay. So Councilman Steven Houlahan has given up his council seat to challenge Santee mayor, John Minto. Can you tell us about that race? Speaker 7: 17:38 Yeah. So Steven Houlihan has been on the city council since 2016 and he has been kind of the dissenting voice on the city council for a long time on things like development. He is more for smart developments and less governmental, uh, ruling about those kinds of things. Minto has been on the, uh, city council since, gosh, I want to say 2012, maybe, uh, he's been mayor for one term and he's going for his second term Speaker 5: 18:09 Feeling about who's got the advantage in this race Speaker 7: 18:12 Hard to say because of proposition N which is the one about the developments. Steven Houlihan was one of the people who wrote that measure up along with a guy named van couns worth, who runs a, uh, preserve wild Santee, which is a political action group, but it's environmentally based. So Houlihan has been kind of the anti-development. I shouldn't say anti-development because he's not against it. He just wants it to be in line with the general plan. And there's a lot of people who are of that mindset right now. They're unhappy about finito ranch, which is the 3000 home development that the city council passed a couple months ago. And he has been very outspoken about that project, not wanting it to have gone through the way that it's it. So Minto, you know, he has a lot more years on the city council and he's got a lot more experience. He's a retired police officer with San Diego city and, uh, just different kinds of experience for the two of them and different viewpoints on things I would say. And it's really hard to tell right now because they both seem to have a lot of backup. Speaker 5: 19:16 Okay. Then let's move on to the city of lemon Grove. And they're deciding that city is deciding on a mayor and a couple of city council members is the city's economy. The big issue in this race. Yes, it is. I wrote a story, Speaker 7: 19:30 Uh, last year about possibly them dissident corporating because of the financial issues that have been really getting worse for them. They only have 25,000 people in that city and they don't have a real big business. Boom. So there's not a lot of taxes that they get from people. So their finances have been troubled for a while. They try to pass a sales tax earlier this year in March and it didn't pass, but they put a measure on the ballot this year for putting tax on medical marijuana. Now, as far as I know, there's only one dispensary in the city, but they allowed it since 2016. And this way, if it passes, there'll be able to get some sales tax money from the medical marijuana. Speaker 5: 20:13 And that would be measured Jay, on the lemon Grove ballot. And how much money would that be expected to generate if it passes, Speaker 7: 20:21 Expected to generate between $560,001.1 million, uh, and would go for municipal expenses, fire safety, roads recreation Speaker 5: 20:31 In the city of Lamesa is the fallout from the civil unrest last summer, playing any role in the racist for city council? Speaker 7: 20:38 I would say, yes, there's been some chatter about different new candidates that are saying that they want more police accountability, but the people that are running for city council, the two incumbents, Christina, Alicia, and column parent have also expressed the same feelings they want more done for the police department to be more transparent. They've had quite a few meetings about the new police chief, the old police chief retired on August 13th, and they've been trying to find a replacement for him. And I would say that it's a very big topic, the social justice, um, and what happened in may in that city when a lot of the businesses were looted and there were two banks in a building that were set on fire and there was just a lot of unrest. So I would say that that's a really big deal in that city, as far as you know, how they're responding to the police and the relationship between the police and the city, the police and the residents Speaker 5: 21:33 Now in East county's largest city alcohol, and there are two competitive council races. One of the big issues in those races Speaker 7: 21:41 Has a homeless issue that they've been trying to deal with for a long time. I think that they've done actually more than other cities have done. They've got a couple of places where the homeless people get taken care of there's home, start this work with them. There's crisis house. They have the alcohol, excuse me, East County, transitional living center. I would say that that's part of what their concerns are. And also opening back up again. There's been some talk about the businesses. There's a lot of businesses and alcohol and a lot of mom and poppers that have struggled because of COVID-19 closure. So they've been talking about how to reopen the city safely so that their businesses can thrive again. Speaker 5: 22:20 And finally, is there any indication of what turnout has been like so far? Speaker 7: 22:25 Um, I don't know the answer to that. I hope that it's in line with the rest of the County. I think people are pretty involved and engaged, but I'm very tuned into the issues and, uh, more of the candidates and what they're saying about things as they go along this versus the people have they voted already or not. So I really don't know what that's going to be like. And I'm, I'm interested in seeing that. Actually Speaker 5: 22:47 I have been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, East County reporter, Karen Perlman. Karen, thank you so much. Thank you. Speaker 8: 22:59 Upon turning 18, you're allowed to do a lot of things you couldn't do before, like voting, but should California allow people to vote before turning 18? That's what proposition 18 is about California report hosts. Saul Gonzalez talks about the pros and cons of the issue with KQD politics reporter guy Meyer Zarati guy. What's probably a teen all about. Speaker 7: 23:22 So property teen would allow 17 year olds to vote in California primary and special elections if they turn 18 by the general election. So this is not aimed at all 17 year olds, but the slices 17 year old to turn 18 between the primary and the November election. Speaker 8: 23:40 And when they vote in the primary, that of course, I would guess, would be both for candidates who are running for propositions on the ballot. Speaker 9: 23:47 That's right. And proponents of this, say one, it's only fair. These teens are voting or allowed to vote in the November election in the general election. So they argue, it's only fair to give them a chance to pick who makes it into the November election by allowing them to vote in a primary. There's also an argument that, you know, voting is a habit. And the earlier you build up that habit, the more likely that these voters could become lifetime voters. And so the thought is, if you introduce voting in primary elections, potentially while these 17 year olds are in high school already getting a civics education, they could potentially increase their habit of voting and become lifelong voters. Speaker 8: 24:28 Hmm. So in a, in a sense, by getting a young person, even earlier into the electoral process, the voting process, you create kind of a lifetime of conscientious voting. Speaker 9: 24:38 Exactly. And you know, this is, you know, there has been some opposition, uh, but opponents have said, look, 18 is kind of the designated age we've decided on for legal responsibility. Um, so why create this special carve out for voting? They also say that, you know, even though many other States have adopted this, that California's different because we vote directly on ballot measures. Speaker 8: 25:00 If this does pass. And if 17 year olds are allowed to vote in California, how might this change? The playing field of California politics? Speaker 9: 25:09 Uh, the public policy Institute of California has done some research on this. And they found basically this would have amounted to 200,000 people in the 2016, uh, and also the 2018 elections, which look in a primary election, which can often be decided by a small vote count. It's already a smaller, uh, universe of voters. Maybe these young, uh, voters could swing elections one way or another. That being said, you know, young voters already have a lower propensity to register and turn out. If you look at the voters who became eligible by turning 18, only half of them registered. And then less than half of that actually showed up to vote in 2016 and in 2018. So it's not as if this is a silver bullet for getting people to the polls and even people who support prop 18 say you really would want to pair it with a stronger civic education. Maybe that'll be the ticket. If people are in school, there have a better, uh, civic education and they can actually apply their vote, uh, in a real way. Instead of in a mock election, Speaker 8: 26:09 That was California report hosts, Saul Gonzalez speaking with KQBD politics, reporter guy, Mars Harati veterans traditionally are more likely to vote for Republican candidates, but poll suggests their support for president. Trump has eroded Jay price reports for the American Homefront project and a poll released this week. 52% Speaker 10: 26:44 Of veterans said they would vote for president Trump while 42% back to former vice president, Joe Biden, others favored a third party candidate or planned not to vote. The poll was by military times and the Institute for veterans and military families at Syracuse university, where Rosa Linda Mari is director of applied research and analytics. Speaker 2: 27:05 I've never seen that in previous year Speaker 10: 27:08 In 2016, 60% of veterans who voted pick Trump according to exit polling and the new poll older vets still had a clear preference for him while younger veterans, female and minority veterans and former officers favored Biden Speaker 2: 27:24 Subpopulations. So you do see some difference. Speaker 10: 27:26 59% of those over the age of 54 said they were backing the president. This includes people like Gary akin, a 71 year old Vietnam veteran from the North Carolina mountain community of Swana Noah who owns a small sign and graphic design. Speaker 11: 27:42 The veterans that I know I interact with are basically saying that they're going to vote for Trump. Speaker 10: 27:48 He said he can't imagine not voting for Trump in part because he feels the VA healthcare system has Speaker 11: 27:54 Also the economy. And I think for me personally, it has to do with the America that I knew growing up versus, you know, the American that Biden and some of his cronies, even vision, which is certainly not what I would want for my grandkids. Speaker 10: 28:10 Trump's volatile behavior and his series of controversial comments about veterans and service members. Haven't played well with many younger veterans, including former Navy seal, Dan bar cough now an emergency room doctor in Vermont, Speaker 2: 28:24 Any issues with Trump. But the thing that started at all was just a dishonesty Speaker 10: 28:28 Bark off who describes himself as a conservative, compared Trump to another president, Speaker 2: 28:33 The Naval Academy when Clinton was the commander in chief and Monica Lewinsky and all that kind of stuff. And I didn't like that either. You know, that the murmuring in the rent so to speak was that, you know, Clinton's this dishonest liar. And there were all these arguments made by, by people who were still in politics, frankly, that, you know, you can't have a commander in chief who's dishonest with the troops and supposed to leave. Speaker 10: 28:56 Barka founded a group called veterans for responsible leadership to, in some sense, persuade other veterans that it was okay not to vote for Trump. And he agreed to record some beer knuckle ads for the Lincoln project, the Republican anti-Trump group that specializes in ads like this goading, the president Speaker 12: 29:14 Pro-life gun owning combat veteran. And I can see Trump for what he is a coward. We need to send this draft Dodger back to his golf courses. The lives of our troops depend on it. Speaker 10: 29:25 The new poll follows an apparent trend. A poll this summer by the same groups found a slight edge for Biden among active duty troops and another recent poll of veterans by morning consult yielded a similar result. The contentious campaign has also spurred non-partisan activism among veterans, Afghanistan, veteran and digital media CEO. Greg Berman has joined forces with 10 other high profile veterans to promote voting. He says they were disturbed by our widespread voter suppression efforts and felt it was an extension of their military service to fight that Speaker 13: 30:00 None of us took any pleasure in having to do this. It's the last thing we want it to do. We want it to feel like every leader was doing its part during a high stakes time for our country to stand by what it means to have a free, fair, and safe election. But feeling like that was under threat and feeling like the lights were blinking red, it felt really important just to say, Hey, you know, we have a stake in this. And we have a perspective that we think is worth sharing. Speaker 10: 30:25 Some in his group are liberal. Others are conservative, but he says the point isn't who to vote for it's that everyone should be allowed to vote in chapel Hill, North Carolina, I'm Jay price. Speaker 1: 30:37 This story was produced by the American Homefront project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. Speaker 10: 30:49 Oh, Speaker 1: 30:53 For many Western communities, their water supplies originate from melting snow high up in the mountains. But this summer is record breaking wildfires have reduced some headwater forests to heaps of Ash, Luke Runyon from K U and C reports. Wildfires can cause big problems for municipal drinking water systems Speaker 14: 31:15 Until eight years ago, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado is main water source. The pooter river was nearly pristine. It tumbled out of the Rocky mountains into the city's treatment plant. No problem. We had been privileged and in some ways probably took for granted that these watersheds were providing us consistently clean, clear water all the time. That's the city's water quality manager, Jill or a Payza were along the river, just outside of town, downstream of where the high park fire burned more than 87,000 acres in 2012, where the first year after the fire, every time it rained, the river turned black mudslides of Ash and scorched soil spilled into it. And before workers could turn off the rivers intake that muddy water clogged pipes leading to the treatment plan. We ended up with a lot of sediment in our pipelines that was difficult to remove. And even if they got the water through the full treatment process, it still tasted and smelled smoky that led the city to install an early warning system. From where we're standing. You can see a long metal pipe stuck in the middle of the river. It's measuring how turbid or cloudy the water is. If the sensor detects too much sediment, utility workers can turn off the plants intake and switch to water from a large reservoir to avoid clogged pipes. It became really important Speaker 15: 32:40 For us to have a heads up for when those changes in water quality were occurring. Speaker 14: 32:45 The effects of the high parks burn scar on water quality only lasted a few years, but this early warning system is about to get a lot more use because this summer is Cameron peak. Fire has burned another broad sweep of the river's watershed. Speaker 16: 33:00 That's one of the most important points about this whole fire is that it's in a sort of high value location for water supply in the front range. Speaker 14: 33:10 Chuck Rhodes is with the forest services, Rocky mountain research station and studies. How big disturbances in forest can affect water quality between the high park and Cameron peak fires nearly the entire Southern half of the pooter river watershed has burned in the last decade. And Rhodes says that will have big impacts on people downstream. Speaker 16: 33:32 There are agriculturalists whether they're residential folks, whether they're people that are floating the river or the aquatic aquatic organisms that are using the river, they're all really linked Speaker 14: 33:42 Of what's happening, but because the high park fire happened so recently, Fort Collins might be more prepared than other places in the West to deal with this new fire. Jen [inaudible] runs the nonprofit coalition for the pooter river watershed. She says the people who formed her group after high park are already talking about recovery from the current one while it's still burning, Speaker 16: 34:04 It doesn't make the situation less stressful, or maybe it makes it moderately less stressful. But the reality of fire footprint, this bag is just it's. It's a lot to take. Speaker 14: 34:16 [inaudible] says the 2020 fire season has renewed a region wide discussion about forest health. And if cities want to avoid long-term water quality problems, she says, they need to be thinking about how to first reduce the risk of mega fires Speaker 16: 34:30 In the West. It's not a question of if it will happen to your community. It's a question of when one of these large events will happen to your communities Speaker 14: 34:40 Back on the banks of the pooter river, the city of Fort Collins, Jill or a pacer says decisions made after the last big fire, like building new infrastructure to remove sediment will help them respond to this time around. And they already have relationships with researchers, federal agencies, and others to ease the burden Speaker 15: 34:59 We live in fire-prone, um, watersheds. And that is our part of our responsibility to adapt to those, that reality Speaker 14: 35:09 Reality. That includes drier forests, hotter summers and extended fire seasons across the West. I'm Luke Runyon in Fort Collins, Colorado. The store is part of a series produced by K U N C K J Z K. Speaker 15: 35:25 Oh well, Aspen public radio and Wyoming public radio support comes from the Walton family foundation. Speaker 5: 35:43 This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh with Mark Sauer eight songs for a mad King was written about King George, the third, but when Bodhi tree concerts performed it at San Diego international fringe festival in 2017, their King looked a lot like Donald Trump with the presidential election around the corner Bodhi tree decided to hold a virtual Encore production tomorrow night, KPBS arts report, Beth Armando Amando speaks with Bodhi tree co-founders Diana and Walter DML about the show Speaker 17: 36:16 In 2017 Bodhi tree concerts, staged eight songs for a mad King at San Diego international fringe. But before we talk about your new production, talk a little bit about the origins of eight songs for mad King, and what led you to produce it for fringe back in 2017, Speaker 18: 36:34 Songs has been one of those pieces that had been on my music shelf for about the last 25 years waiting for the perfect synergistic opportunity to unveil itself. And the fringe festival was in fact that opportunity and, um, pivoting the mad King from George. The third two are at that point recently elected own mad King seemed like an appropriate fit and the fit is all the more appropriate today. So that was the origin more or less. Well, we also found a great music director and Brendan Winn who was up to the challenge. He brought amazing local artists with him and he put together an incredible chamber orchestra. So we had this incredible group of local artists that were ready to go, and we had the motivation and we had, uh, the vehicle through the San Diego international fringe festival too. So it was awesome. Speaker 17: 37:33 And what is this original piece? Cause you mentioned it was about King George. So what, what is, is this an opera piece or what exactly, how do you describe what this piece is? Because it's, it's quite unique. Speaker 18: 37:47 It calls for six instrumentalists with a quite a wide arrange of percussion instruments, giving it a wide pallet of sounds. The keyboard is, does both piano harpsichord. So Peter Maxwell Davies took actual writings, uh, that King George had cobbled put together this sort of psychodrama, if you will, of the rantings of a, of a mad Monarch and, um, in some of the little poems and writings that King George wrote, he was believed to have been taught. The birds were talking to him, the animals were talking to him. And so the piece sort of pivots around a lot of tweeting, like, uh, sounds that communicate to him. And so that that's really, even if you set this in period England, um, that manifestation of the, of birds communicating to the mad King was absolutely there from the orig origins. And, and basically it was a vehicle for at the time, what was very provocative, extended vocal techniques. So the singer is using his voice in a lot of creative, extended ways that would not be normally found on the operatic stage. Speaker 7: 38:57 I think the orchestra too, they have a lot of cool extended technique. We're going to try and highlight that in the video production of it, which you couldn't really see in the live production. So we get to highlight that those techniques, as well as Walter's, um, extended techniques. Speaker 17: 39:12 So I'm very interested to see how this translates because the production you did at fringe was wildly kind of expansive and that you were singing and dancing across a huge boardroom table and people were live tweeting and it was very interactive. So we are now in lockdown and we can't have live performances. So how have you translated it and what is this production going to look like? Right. Speaker 7: 39:42 Well, um, we started with the orchestra and almost all the orchestra members are the original from the original cast and they recorded their parts in their homes and our conductor, Brendan to end new and put the parts together and lay down a master. So it's kind of a new definition of a conductor. And then, um, Walter went in and recorded his part separately with Brendan so that he was recorded and then the next part was filming. And so Walter basically saying to the orchestra track and himself while filming, and we all wear masks all of the time, except for when Walter was actively performing, he took his mask off. It was not easy, but we don't have the live tweeting, but we do have tweeting featured, you know, which we can put in and editing that we have, we have lots of screens up in our, behind the mad King. So we have a lot of media going on at all times. We hope that when we presented on Instagram and Facebook on digitally, that people will comment when it's presented. So we're going to send it instructions and encourage people to tweet what they feel. Because honestly, those tweets that were in the live production, they became a character in the show. The audiences were brilliant and we'll definitely miss that. So I'm hoping people will comment Speaker 18: 41:02 If I can add the three other videoed concert presentations that we've done this season so far, the live interaction or the commentary that goes on the side of the screen has been a fun addition to watching the video performance, because you do feel connected to a virtual audience that are commenting in real time. And, uh, the won't be quite as a biting or potentially as a service really witty as what was happening in our 2017 French festival. I think it will be an addition as well. And Walter, talk a Speaker 2: 41:34 Little bit about the challenges of performing this role. Speaker 18: 41:38 Yeah. I think always starting with the material that's given to you by the composer. Uh, and in this case, sir, pier Maxwell gave you these rather quirky poems or writings by King George at times nonsensical or unrelated to each other. But then if you were to look at a sheet of the sheet music, you would see more suggestive lines and arrows than you would actually notes to sing. He has a lot of instructions that say, get whiny or sing like an Alto, you know, so there was a lot of, uh, vocal suggestions that are not defined and it re you could watch 15 performances of this by different artists and they would all be completely different experiences. So I think finding making choices and making choices that you can sustain without hurting yourself, because a lot of times it is almost screaming and vomiting, this, the madness coming out of this guy, you know, playing with what you can do, healthfully and, and repeatedly is part of the challenge to whatever performer takes on this role. Speaker 2: 42:47 Why did you feel it was important to get a production of this off before the election? Do you feel that the timing of this is important to you? Well, yeah. Speaker 18: 42:57 Yes we do. We're thinking of it as a, please get out of a vehicle it's art imitating life, and we're putting it out there and we just want people to vote, vote, vote, vote, Speaker 2: 43:13 And how, how people can access this. Speaker 18: 43:15 We're going to present eight songs from ad King. One time on link on Friday, October 30th, starting at 6:00 PM, and we'll show it to Instagram and Facebook. And if you want instructions on how to join us, um, they can reach us@bodhitreeconcertsatgmail.com. Join us. We have to get the word out because it's one time only. Speaker 2: 43:36 I want to thank you both very much for talking about eight songs for a mad King. Thank you. Thank you so much fast. That was Beth Armando Mondo speaking with Diana and Walter dumbell of Bodhi tree concerts. Eight songs for a mad King will be available on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram tomorrow night at six [inaudible].