S04E02: THE MURDER OF DARRIEN HUNT

Katie: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

And so there's something odd going on here. You'd think you would remember somebody coming at you with a sword. Utah is an open carry state, which means that you are literally allowed to have weapons, like guns and knives on you out in the open. It's one of those cases where justice has really not been served, and what's frustrating in this case is that we without a doubt know who the killer is. There are some suspicious circumstances that look like some sort of coverup and the killer has not been put to justice or even charged.

AJ: Yeah. To me, it just seemed like the police had an agenda or were very hell bent on doing something.

Katie: So I mean, out of 26 witnesses, only one of them is backing up what the police had to say.

AJ: Hi everyone. Welcome back to Crime Family. I'm your co-host AJ, and I'm here with Katie. Today we're back with another episode of the show, but before we get into that, I just want to let you know about our patron community that opened a little while ago, a few weeks back. If you like the show and you want exclusive extras, like ad free content, bonus episodes, a private community to connect with us, free merch and an exclusive new true crime series Doc Talk, then consider becoming a patron.

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 Katie's going to narrate this episode about a case that she has ready. So what case is it?

Katie: Hi everyone, I'm Katie, and today I'm going to be talking about the case of Darrien Hunt. For whatever reason, this case just really stuck out to me when I stumbled upon it. I think one of the reasons is because it's one of those cases where justice has really not been served, and what's frustrating in this case is that we, without a doubt, know who the killer is. There are some suspicious circumstances that look like some sort of coverup, and the killer has not been put to justice or even charged, nor have they even lost their job as the killer in this case was a Utah County police officer. So, like I said, this is the case of Darrien Hunt. He was a 22 year old black man living in Saratoga Springs, Utah in 2014. According to the MTV show, Real Life Crime episode on this case, Darrien lived in Saratoga Springs, Utah, and this city is predominantly white. Darrien and his family, being black, really stood out in the city. That episode says that there is approximately 93% white people in the city, and 0.5% are black. So you can see how very, you know, small the black community is in this city. Darrien was into cosplay, which is, if you're not familiar with cosplay, is when people dress up as their favorite comic book characters or favorite superheroes, or just their favorite characters. It's not something that you just do for conventions like ComicCon or other comic book conventions. It's something that people actually do on a regular basis with a group of friends if they all have that similar interest. So Darrien loved sci-fi and anime and his brother KJ, tells a reporter from True Life Crime that they had a wild imagination growing up. Darrien just loved that sci-fi world, and so on the day that Darrien was murdered, he was cosplaying and he was dressed up as a character named Mugen from the Samurai Champloo which is a Japanese anime series. If you look at pictures of that character and how Darrien was dressed that day, they do look really similar. They both have black Afro hair and the character wears a red shirt and baggy pants and that's exactly what Darrien had on that day. The character also has a samurai sword that he carries around, so on this day Darrien had a sword that he was using for cosplay, but this sword was just a $30 sword that his mom had got him from the mall. It wasn't even a real samurai sword, but it was long and it was in a sheath that you would carry around a real sword in. He had that on his back. On this day, September 10th, 2014, Darrien is dressed up as Mugen in his red shirt and he's carrying the sword and he's walking down the street. I think a critical thing to note in this case is that Utah is an open carry state, which means that you are literally allowed to have weapons like guns and knives on you out in the open. So even if he was carrying a real Samurai sword, it wouldn't have been illegal because he was of age. It wouldn't have been illegal for him to be carrying that around. Of course there are some restrictions to that. According to Utahcriminallaw.net, certain people who fall under category one or two, like convicted criminals or those who have substance abuse issues are not allowed to carry swords or machetes. Obviously if you're a minor, you're not allowed either, and you can't have them in places like schools or high security places like airports. You also should avoid high traffic places like parks and malls and things like that, just so you're not drawing attention. Anyway, Darrien was not breaking any of these rules and to point out again, it wasn't even a real sword. Even if it was, it would've been legal. So, while carrying a sword is legal in Utah, it's not necessarily common to see somebody carrying a giant Samurai sword around. This is what may have prompted a 911 call on that day on September 10th. Someone who was at the gas station that Darrien was walking by saw Darrien walking down the street with his Samurai sword and they called 911. It's a concerned citizen and it does seem reasonable to me that maybe people would be concerned if you see someone walking down the street with a big samurai sword. There's also some footage of what went down that day. I'm going to share the link, but I'm just going to show you AJ, the footage and just so we can talk about and see what stands out. Just to describe a little bit what's happening in this footage, it's choppy and it breaks up the footage from different angles. What you see basically, is Darrien walking down the street, in his anime outfit and his sword on his back, and then it cuts to police following him, walking behind him. Then it cuts to him running across the parking lot with the police, chasing him. Is there anything that stands out to you in this footage?

AJ: I mean, to me it looked pretty normal. He was just walking on the sidewalk there. The police officer looked like he was on a mission right away to follow him. Then you see him chasing or being chased by the police officer. It was a bit choppy to see, but yeah, to me it seemed like the police had an agenda or was very hell bent on doing something, I feel, just based on the way he's marching. It looks like he's marching towards him with the purpose of wanting to, not necessarily, I don't know if you wanted to harm him or whatever, but he just seemed very concerned right from the jump, which stood out to me.

Katie: So yeah, what stood out to me as well is that Darrien is very nonchalantly walking down the sidewalk. He's at this gas station, but he is just very calmly walking down the street. Then you can see the police are more on edge, which I guess would be expected because they're suspecting maybe something is going on. Darrien is not acting sketchy. It doesn't look like he's on drugs or drunk or anything. He's very much just walking down the street. If he didn't have that fake samurai sword on his back, he would look just like a regular person walking down the street. Something else that stood out to me is that very early in the footage, there's a woman that comes out of one of the stores and she's right behind him, walking behind Darrien. So if she was scared, you wouldn't think that she'd be at arm's length away from Darrien, who has this sword. She doesn't seem to be scared or have any issue with him at all, which I think is very telling to his presence there. It wasn't disturbing to this woman walking down the street as well. So after that 911 call, the police do show up obviously, as we saw in that footage. What's frustrating is that we really don't know what happened fully, or we don't have the full picture of what really went down that day and it feels like we should have more detail. The officers that do show up are Officer Schauerhamer and Officer Judson, and they claim that Schauerhamer had a brief conversation with Darrien after stopping him. He asks him, what's going on? Darrien just says that he's looking for a ride. Schauerhamer says that he asks Darrien to put his sword on top of his car and hand over the sword so that they can just talk without having that sword there. He says that Darrien was very eerily calm, and he says he seemed detached from the situation. He says that Darrien responded by saying that, "No, he can't do that because it's his sword." Officer Schauerhamer says that Darrien wasn't aggressive or argumentative in any way. What we do know is that all of this, from the 911 call to what happens next only happens within about a nine minute timeframe , Darrien walking down the street, the 911 call, and then the police chasing Darrien. It all happens very quickly. There's a woman who talks to the reporter from that MTV episode, and she says that she notices that the police were creeping around the parking lot behind Darrien, and that he got cornered by police by the end of it. She says that they were definitely just talking to him calmly. They were questioning him. She wasn't close enough to hear exactly what they were saying, but she says that she was close enough that she would've been able to hear if there was yelling or an argument going on, and so that didn't happen. It seemed that they were all just very calmly standing there talking. Another witness does say that they saw Darrien holding out the sword horizontally as if he was, you know, trying to pass the sword over to the police. The police officers themselves even have a different story to what happened that day. Schauerhamer says that Darrien lunged at the other officer Judson with the sword, but Officer Judson says that Darrien actually lunged at Schauerhamer. So there's something odd going on here. You'd think you would remember somebody coming at you with a sword and you'd think you would remember if they were coming after somebody else instead of you. For whatever reason, these officers can't get their story straight. There were approximately 26 eyewitnesses that didn't see the whole thing, but they saw bits and pieces of what happened that day. Apparently only two of them actually said that they saw Darrien swing the sword. Then later one of those witnesses says that they never actually said that they never saw Darrien swing the sword, so that was not correct. The one person that did stick to the story saying that Darrien did swing at the officers, they were actually a very close family member of another officer in a nearby city who had been killed just the day before. Maybe there was some bias, you know, high emotion going on so that they were on the side of the police and were backing up what they were saying. Out of 26 witnesses, only one of them is backing up what the police had to say. Another one of those witnesses claims that Darrien did pull out the sword, but it was just pulling it out of the sheath to show the officers that it wasn't real and that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't dangerous at all. It looked like he was showing them and that he was going to surrender the sword like they asked. Darrien asks, " Why are you harassing me?" That's when he started to walk away from them because there really was no point, the police were trying to interrogate him when he really was doing nothing wrong. It was at this point when there were shots fired. The first witness that I had mentioned before, she was in her car watching this whole thing go down, and she says that she looked down for a second to shift her gear shift on her car so she could back up or drive out of this parking lot, and it was when her head was down is when she heard the gunshots. She didn't actually see if he had lunged or if he didn't lunge. All she heard was the gunshots and by the time she looked up, that's when they start running and she gets out of the parking lot as fast as she can. So we know that after these first gunshots, Darrien starts running as we see in that footage. Some reports say that at least one of the shots at this point has already hit Darrien, so it makes sense that he's already shot and he's like," I gotta get out of here." That's when he starts running. We don't know exactly when the shots that were fired actually did hit him. As we know, Darrien is running across the parking lot and the police are full speed chasing after him. They're shooting this entire time and they ultimately kill him because of this incident. Like I was saying before, one of the very frustrating things about this is that there are security cameras, obviously, because we see some of the footage. There are some angled that would potentially show the whole thing go down in one straight motion. There's a picture that was taken of Darrien that day and he's standing there with the police, very nonchalantly. In that picture there's a security camera right above them. Then literally the next day when people go back, that security camera has been removed. It's just gone as if it had never been there. For whatever reason, none of the police officers had their body cameras on. I think Schaeurhamer didn't even have his body camera on him. The other officer did have it on, but he didn't turn it on and the dash cam from their police vehicles wasn't turned on either. When they were questioned about this, they were basically just like, "Yeah, they worked, We had them, but we just didn't turn them on." So that's frustrating because shouldn't that be a requirement to have them on at all times so you can actually see what's going on. That frustrates me to no end.

AJ: Yeah. It's annoying. They shouldn't be able to turn them off. They should just be automatically on permanently.

Katie: Yeah, they should be. The dash cam should be on at all times. What's the value in turning them off? There's no reason they should be off. You never know driving down the road when you stop, you never know what they're going to capture that could be helpful. It seems like they turn them off for a reason, which, you know, is super sketchy. Doing some reading, it doesn't even look like it's a law or that they would get punished for turning them off. They're there, you should probably use them. If you don't, then you know, that's just how it went. So that's frustrating. Darrien's family actually had to find out via social media that it was the police officers that had shot and killed Darrien. They weren't even told that when they initially were told what had happened. I guess they just were told that Darrien was shot and killed, but nobody said that it was from police officers. They had to find that out via a social media post from somebody else, which I think is horrifying. When they found out that Darrien had allegedly lunged at police, they said that was absolutely something that he would never have done. Further to this, Darrien's family's lawyer says that the fact that Darrien was running from the police made their use of deadly force really unnecessary and you know, almost unlawful because their lives were not in danger at this point when he's running away from them, his back is turned. So why are they chasing him and then opening fire on him. It feels like they, you know, weren't scared for their lives at this point. I guess the police defend themselves in saying, "Well, they thought that maybe he could have taken out the sword and slashed any innocent person that he came across if, you know, he was desperate." It's stretching for a reason to why they shot him. As I mentioned earlier, the police say that Darrien lunged at one of them, even though they can't figure out which one he lunged at, which seems kind of weird. The autopsy reveals that he was actually shot six times in the back of his body. People are saying, "How do you get shot in the back if you're lunging at somebody?" It was very obvious that his back was turned and he was, you know, just either turned or running at the time when they shot him so their stories just aren't adding up. There's some reports that say he was shot in the legs, he was shot in the wrist, and ultimately the shot that killed him was to his back. That deadly shot was in his back and that bullet never exited his body. That's what ultimately killed him. Like I was saying before, how do you get shot in the back if you're lunging at somebody and then they shoot you because they're scared for their lives. I guess if the police were surrounding him, you could have lunged at one of them, the other one shot him in the back. From the pictures and from the descriptions of what happened that day, both of the police officers were in front of him talking to him, so there wasn't one behind him that would've shot him if he lunged at the other. That doesn't add up either. Darrien's mother also claims that before this incident, Darrien had had an incident with Officer Schaeurhamer during a traffic stop where he had a very minor violation. It was something like his blinker was out, or his light was dead or something on his car in the middle of the day. Schaeurhamer wanted to impound his car, which is extreme for the offense that he had, very minor. His mom accused Schaeurhamer of being a racist because Schaerhamer is white, so was the other officer that showed up that day. Darrien is black, and so maybe Schaeurhamer showed up, recognized Darrien, maybe had this in the back of his head. It was on his mind as he was chasing him, like he already had an incident with this guy. A lot of variables happening. Maybe he is a racist or you know, had racist thoughts. We don't know. Of course he'll never admit that and that's just speculation on my part. His family does think that maybe that has something to do with it. Any thoughts so far?

AJ: Yeah, I mean it's very frustrating to hear. This was 2014, right? You said?

Katie: Yes.

AJ: Yeah. It's just so frustrating to hear. It's a scenario that we hear time and time again. I think the point that some people were making or that you mentioned was that the fact that he had shots in his back shows that his back was to the officers probably running away from them. You can't really make the argument that the police officer's lives were in danger. I feel like just that in and of itself is evidence that their force was unnecessary, that it was malicious or that it wasn't necessary because obviously if you're shooting him in the back, he's not facing you because he's probably running away. From what we saw a little bit in that surveillance footage, looks like that's what was happening. It just seems like it's so obvious that the police were very much in the wrong and that they used excessive force for absolutely no reason. I have no doubt that the officers probably were racist, even if they, you know, implicit bias or, you know, on a subconscious level, because obviously they'll never admit that they had that thought. I would suspect that if the person holding this toy sword were white, that it would've had a very different result. Those are the thoughts that are running through my mind, and it's just crazy to think that the police would even have a logical explanation for any of this when it seems so obvious, just based on the physical evidence and the autopsy and the shots on his body that you know, it's not going to be in line with any sort of defense that they're going to come up with that makes sense.

Katie: Yeah. I think the fact that they can't even get their story straight of who he lunged at, you know, makes it look like they both are making up a story and they couldn't even get that story straight. You'd think you would remember being lunged at with a sword?

AJ: Yeah, and the cops, I mean obviously they're so dumb they can't even get their own story straight. I just think it's a lot of covering their own backs and trying to come up with something that will allow them to get off a little bit scot-free. I don't really buy anything that they're saying. I tend to believe that it was all very unnecessary.

Katie: Yeah, and I mean, I think the fact that that 911 call came in. They knew what they were dealing with. They thought maybe there was somebody with an actual sword walking down the street. You'd think like, "Oh, let's get our body cameras on, our dash cams on so we can record in case something really does go down, we have evidence of what happened." The fact that they didn't even think about that or maybe it's just, you know, common practice for them not to turn their cameras on, you know, so they could say whatever they want happened and then get rid of security cameras that actually did capture the whole thing. It just seemed like something is happening, something is being covered up, and we'll just never understand what happened. Also, another thing that is sad is when you watch that episode on MTV, Darrien's mother, she talks about this, she is white and his father was black, but she talks about how this shows just how privileged we are as white people. She said she never had the talk with them or she felt like she didn't need to have the talk with them. And the talk is, I guess, a common thing that black families have about how to talk to police if you ever get pulled over, if you ever come in contact with the police, like how to act, what to say, what not to say so that you don't get into an incident like this. I never would've thought that that was a thing that you would have to talk to your kids about, but it's very common in the black community. His mother was saying she thought that in this day and age, the way you know, racism isn't what it used to be, that she didn't feel like she needed to have that talk with her kids. She blames herself that maybe if she had talked to her kids about that, that maybe this wouldn't have happened. I mean, of course it's not her fault, and regardless of, you know, what Darrien would've said or did, I think that this was unnecessary, the way the whole thing went down.

AJ: Yeah. The point that you mentioned about the fact that, you know, we are privileged, you know, as white people, because when you hear the talk, like that's not what you think of, you know, so the fact that yeah, there are black families who have to have, you know, the talk with their kids, which would mean how to interact with police. It's a sad reality that even this day and age, that that is something that they have to be told and you know, how it's so different for that community. It's crazy to think that. Also I think what you were saying too about, you know, obviously it's not his mother's fault and maybe she thought like, "Well, racism, Isn't what it used to be." I think there was a period, and also this could be, you know, a sign of my own privilege to thinking this, but I feel like there was a period in time when, I'm trying not to get too political or too in depth, but I think there was a time during when Barack Obama was president that people thought like, "Look, there's a black man who's president, so therefore racism doesn't exist. Things are way better now. We have a black president." I think, you know, in many ways it's like, "Yes, there is a black president, which is great, but there were so many people who were not happy that he was president and there were so, so many people who were racist and maybe it was suppressed because it wasn't as you know, for that period of time that maybe it wasn't going to be quote unquote "acceptable." Now we see in today's day and age, Donald Trump and all of the racists that exist now, it became more acceptable to be a disgusting racist. That's why you're seeing all these people coming out of the woodwork now, whereas I feel like maybe back in 2014, there were still sort of in that time where you're like thinking that because there's a black president, that there's not, that racism isn't as big of a thing as it once was, when really obviously it is. I think, and this was obviously before the George Floyd incident and the Trayvon Martin incident, I think this was before that. It was also an earlier time too, before all of that where that's not really at the top of your mind too.

Katie: Yeah, and I think maybe because it was Barack Obama as president, like you were saying, those racists weren't out and vocal about it because of who the president was, even though of course they still exist, but they were suppressing it and then when they have their chance to show their racist side, they go for it. Which may have been the case in this situation, sadly. Of course we don't know that. That's just speculation. But I mean, it is very sad.

AJ: Yeah. When, you know, a couple years ago, when the president's saying all these horrible, racist things and is a disgusting person, then you know, it almost empowers everyone else who's racist and disgusting to be like, "Well the president gets away with it and it's fine so nothing will happen to us because we can just, you know what I mean? The president's doing it so we can do it."

Katie: Yeah, exactly. Like I said at the beginning, there really isn't any justice in this case because the officers were never charged with any wrongdoing. The fact that they shot and killed him, prosecutors found that to be acceptable force that they used because they felt that their lives were in danger, so, you know, that went unpunished as well. Darrien's mother sued the city and the officers, and this is something that I have never heard before. She was offered a $900,000 settlement that came along with a gag order. If she accepted that, she wouldn't have been allowed to talk about this case or you know, rally any support for getting justice. She turned this down because, you know, she obviously did not want that gag order. In 2016, a federal judge actually ordered her to take the money and therefore forced that gag order on her, which she had no choice but to accept because it was a court order. Have you ever heard of that before? Forcing someone to take this money and a gag order that goes along with it?

AJ: You could do that? I didn't know that was actually a thing that could happen.

Katie: I know.

AJ: I thought, you know, if you're offered it, you have the choice whether to accept it or not. That's so bizarre.

Katie: I've never heard of that.

AJ: Yeah. I've never heard of that either. Wow.

Katie: She did turn it down and then eventually it was just like, "Well no, you're taking it, you're taking the money."

AJ: That's crazy. Wow, that's wild. I didn't even think that. How is that even legal? You can't just force somebody and like also $900,000, yes, who wouldn't want $900,000? That's also nothing in the grand scheme of things when your child dies and you're not allowed to talk about the case forever and for $900,000. What is that? Wow. That's crazy.

Katie: Yeah. Like I said, she originally turned it down because, you know, just having that gag order attached to that wasn't enough. It felt like hush money. Right? Here's your money. Don't ever talk about this again. That's what she's forced to do, which is super unfortunate. She can't, I guess, rally for justice for her son. There is a change.org petition online that's asking to have Darrien's case reopened. I guess there are people out there that are speaking up on her behalf. This petition currently has close to 900,000 signatures. There is a lot of support out there. There's a lot of people that see the injustice in this, how there was no justice and standing up for Darrien and of course, seeing that this was a tragedy that should never have happened. So yeah, a lot of things to think about and crazy. Definitely I feel like there's some sort of cover up, especially that gag order that is being forced. It's like she can't dig into the case anymore and how the police can't get their story straight, how there's probably video footage out there that's never been released, never been talked about. Definitely a sketchy situation and super sad.

AJ: Wow. Yeah. That's wild. You should share the link to the petition. We can put that in the show notes. I think I want to sign that petition. I think other people will too. That's wild.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. I'll be signing it and I'll link it.

AJ: Yeah. I still can't get over the fact that she was forced to take this gag order and that money. That to me is just bizarre. You're telling me nothing ever happened to the police at all? They're just out there roaming free, who knows what else they're doing? They got away with murder basically, or in my opinion, allegedly.

Katie: Yeah. As far as I know there's never been any charges.

AJ: That's really annoying. That's really annoying.

Katie: Oh, I was going to say back to the gag order, it's crazy how she's like forced to take that money. They just deposited into her bank against her will, and then now that she has some money, she can't talk. It's so forceful. I can't imagine how she feels.

AJ: Yeah. You should be able to say, "Well, I didn't agree to have that money put in my account, so you can put it in there if you want, but that doesn't bind me to anything." It's just crazy to me that that's even legal. I mean, you know, they can put the money in there if they want. That's their prerogative, like please do, but it's just weird that that's binding her also by this. She can't talk about it when that's not even something she could agree to. I feel like you have to sign an NDA, that's something you have to sign for consent to. Obviously, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the ins and outs of these things, but to me that seems like something that's highly illegal or should be highly illegal.

Katie: Yeah, probably because it was a court order they made her sign it or she doesn't need to sign it because it was ordered by the court. Either way, it just seems like an unbelievable thing that I've never heard of happening before. Didn't know that was a thing. You could force somebody to take a settlement that they don't want. So, yeah. Ridiculous.

AJ: Yeah, and I think that maybe one, not really a positive thing, but I think something good that can come out of it is, you know, we're in this era of, you know, social reckoning for, you know, police brutality. I think, you know, with the George Floyd murder, and the Brianna Taylor murder as well. It's a lot more in the public consciousness. So I think maybe the petition will be able to gain a lot more traction and attention and then hopefully some action can come out of that because now we're in this mode where these kind of cases might get a lot more press than maybe they would have even, you know, back when it happened in 2014 or even, you know, five years ago. I think if anything, we might be at a period of time now where hopefully this kind of case can get the attention it deserves, and then with the petition and everything that we can finally see some sort of resolution and justice.

Katie: Yeah, I hope everyone does sign the petition and at least, you know, thinks a little bit more about this case and whether the petition will reopen the case, whether it will give justice, I think even just putting those police officers under the microscope a little bit more, maybe making it mandatory to have your body cam and dash cams on at all times, regardless of you know what you're doing. You're on a break at the gas station, put on your dash cams. I feel like that should just be punishable if you don't. That just seems like a very simple thing that they could do.

AJ: It's probably too, part of it is all the police officers at the top are also guilty of doing that, so they're not going to come down on other police officers for doing that because then they would have to address their own misconduct by doing it themselves I'm sure. I mean obviously I don't, this is just my opinion, I don't know for sure, but I'm saying it's probably a lot of other people covering for other people because they also don't want to get caught. I just think the fact that they're able to shut them off, those things should not even have an external shutoff button that the police officer can even do. Even if you take the other stuff out, even if it's just for their own protection, you know, you never know when something might come up that would prove your case. Why wouldn't you want to have that on when those instances happen?

Katie: Yeah. What's the benefit of turning it off? I mean, that's just like having a security camera outside your house, but you're going to turn it off at certain times. Like why? You just never know what's going to happen and when, so why not just always have to have them on? That makes the most sense to me.

AJ: Yeah. By shutting it off and having the officer shut it off, that just creates suspicion.

Katie: Yeah. It's like you're very selective of what you're going to record and when and who you're going to record. Specific calls that you're gonna record. It shouldn't be an option. It should be mandatory because yeah, it does create suspicion.

AJ: Yeah. You create that doubt the minute that thing goes off and then maybe it'll come back on again hours later, and then it's always going to create, even if nothing happened in that three hours and it's so mundane, you're obviously going to jump to, "Well, what happened in three hours? Why was it shut off?" So if anything, even if you're totally innocent, it's going to create that doubt. Why wouldn't you want to just have that on just to show you have nothing to hide, but obviously all these cops have something major to hide. I'm sure. Especially maybe in this case and that's why they're shut off. The fact that they're even allowed to shut them off is crazy to me.

Katie: Maybe you could get over it if one of them forgot to turn on their body cam, but there was two officers, didn't have a body cam on. Their dash cams weren't on. That's multiple layers of either deliberately not wanting to record what was happening or just not caring enough to be like," Let's make sure these are on." Either way it's not a good look and I feel like something should be done or said or you know, just acknowledged that they fucked up. Which hasn't happened.

AJ: I feel like they're are so many cases where similar things like this happen and there's alleged police misconduct. It's always times when body cams are not on and that's why you automatically assume that anytime they get shut off by the officer, that there's a reason why it's shut off, that there's something they're hiding. It seems like every single time that one of these things goes down, it's always inconveniently in this timeframe when it was shut off. You know? It just seems like it's not rocket science to think if somebody shuts off their body cam footage, there's obviously something. Also too, being in the court of law, you can't, that isn't reason enough to convict someone off video that you don't have. So even if there is that doubt, I'm sure the police officer doesn't care because he doesn't care if there's doubt, but there's nothing to prove that he did it either, you know?

Katie: Yeah, exactly. If there was some sort of punishment or, you know, some sort of repercussions to not having a fully functional dash cam and body cam on, then, you know, what's going to stop them from just never using it because, you know, they can just do whatever the fuck they want and no one's going to see it, which I feel like is what happened in this case. They definitely did things they weren't supposed to, didn't want people to know about it, and that's what happened and we'll never know.

AJ: Yeah. I feel like there should be a requirement you know, if a cop works a 12 hour shift, at the end of the shift before they're allowed to go home, they should have to turn in their dash cam and their body cam, and there should be 12 hours of footage on that. If there's 12 hours of footage, then they can go home.

Katie: Yeah.

AJ: That should be what they do.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine if they just never turned their body cam on? Who knows what they did for the 12 hour shift? They could have been out doing whatever the fuck they wanted. No one would see it, and then they just go home. They could have been doing a lot of sketchy stuff in that time.

AJ: Yeah. There's no accountability. That goes back to what I said before. It's probably because the people at the top are also doing sketchy shit, so they have no incentive to actually call out the other people because it's going to bring up their own sketchy shit. It's systemic at this point and it just needs an overhaul.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. I agree.

AJ: We'll definitely put the link to the petition in the show notes, so definitely go and sign that petition, because it's for a really important cause and hopefully, you know, this case gets some traction or this petition, like you said, it already has 900,000 signatures, which is great. If you're listening to this and you're as frustrated as we are about this case, then definitely sign that petition.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. So yeah, that's all we have today for the Darrien Hunt case. I hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next week for a brand new case. Like we said at the beginning, make sure you join our Patreon. If you can't get enough of our content there's lots of good stuff in there and lots of good stuff coming up. Check out our merch. Check out our website, crime family podcast.ca, and definitely check out our Patreon at patreon.com/crimefamilypodcast. See you next time.

AJ: Bye.