Jennifer Kretschman, a Sacramento school district social worker, was wrapping up her workday when she received a sudden, frantic call from her 17-year-old daughter. Kretschman’s daughter informed her that a black SUV with tinted windows was following her and her stepfather, Kretschman’s fiancé, Jacob Palkovic, on their drive home from school. Kretschman instructed her daughter and Palkovic to come meet her at her workplace, but it was too late. Shortly after the call ended, the unmarked SUV swerved in front of Palkovic’s car. Armed men poured out of the vehicle and pointed their guns at Palkovic and his stepdaughter. Tearing the two family members out of the car, the men failed to announce themselves as members of the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office’s Gang Suppression Unit. Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of the Police Accountability Report speak with Kretschman to uncover why her family was arrested, and explore the myriad problems that come from specialized police units and the police culture that makes them so dangerous.
Production: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. 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. And today we’ll achieve that goal by showing one of the most disturbing videos of police overreach I have ever seen, a violent traffic stop by a gang unit that ensnared a teenage girl and her innocent father. A rare glimpse into the threat that militarized policing poses to our basic constitutional rights, which we are going to break down into all of its problematic pieces.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter at tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like share and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and it can even help our guests. Now of course, you know I read your comments and appreciate them, you see those hearts I give out down there. And I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show what an amazing community we have. And we also have a Patreon called accountabilityreports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as host of a show focused on police accountability, I have watched and reported on a variety of horrible arrests and horrifying body camera video. However, the video I’m showing you right now is one of the most problematic I’ve ever seen. Not just because of the aggressive tactics and sheer indifference to the Constitution it picks, but the ugliness it reveals about the state of American law enforcement, a deeply upsetting callousness towards the citizenry that must be witnessed to be believed.
The story starts in Sacramento, California, in September of 2023. There a man named Jacob Palkovic was driving his 17-year-old stepdaughter home from school. As he was driving, he noticed a black SUV with tinted windows following him. Concerned, his daughter called his fiancee, Jennifer Kretschman. She instructed him to drive to her workplace, a local school, for their safety. But before they could arrive, the unmarked truck drove in front of them and a terrifying encounter with a group of plainclothes officers ensued. Take a look.
Jacob Palkovic:
I’m trying to pull into my wife’s work right here, man.
Speaker 3:
What part of stop don’t you understand?
Jacob Palkovic:
Hey Officer, I’m trying to pull into-
Speaker 3:
Get out of the car.
Jacob Palkovic:
I got the car in drive.
Speaker 3:
Get out of the… put it in park.
Jacob Palkovic:
I got the car in drive.
CJ Kretschman:
I’m a minor, I’m a minor, I’m a minor.
Speaker 3:
Get out of the car.
Jacob Palkovic:
Yes sir, I’m coming out. What the fuck? What do I do man? I just trying to turn in my wife’s work-
Speaker 3:
Put your hands on your back.
Jacob Palkovic:
I can’t. I got a bad back.
Speaker 5:
Put your hands behind your back.
Jacob Palkovic:
I got a bad back man. What the fuck?
Taya Graham:
That’s right. A bunch of men exit an unmarked vehicle with guns drawn, pointed at Jacob. There are no police markings on their car and they didn’t even announce that they’re police officers. Instead, they drag him to the ground and proceed to execute a painful and terrifying arrest. Just watch.
Speaker 3:
Don’t resist.
Jacob Palkovic:
Yes sir. What am I doing? I just wanted to get to my wife’s work.
Speaker 5:
Well that was stupid. That was fucking stupid.
Jacob Palkovic:
Dude. I’m not… I [inaudible 00:03:18].
Speaker 5:
That was fucking dumb.
Jacob Palkovic:
I can’t breathe man.
Speaker 3:
All right, he’s good.
Jacob Palkovic:
I can’t get up-
Speaker 3:
Turn around, turn around. Stand up. Turn around and stand up.
Jacob Palkovic:
[inaudible 00:03:33].
Taya Graham:
Now let’s take a second to acknowledge the utter lawlessness of what we’re seeing here and what it means. And I will allege for this particular video, these police officers have not explained to Jacob why he’s on the ground, in obvious pain, being handcuffed. They have not spoken to him at all, they have not articulated a crime or probable cause for violently removing him from the car. Instead, they’ve used force without any foreseeable provocation. An indiscriminate use of police powers that only escalates when they arrest a seventeen-year-old girl. Just look.
Jacob Palkovic:
What the fuck are you guys doing to my daughter?
Speaker 5:
Is this your wife or your daughter?
Jacob Palkovic:
She’s 17 years old man.
Speaker 5:
Well then stop acting like an idiot.
Jacob Palkovic:
Doing it by I’m coming to my wife’s work.
Speaker 5:
Now you’re going to jail.
Jacob Palkovic:
She’s 17 years old, man.
Speaker 5:
Now you’re going to jail. Now you’re going to jail.
Jacob Palkovic:
Why would you do that to a seventeen-year-old? [inaudible 00:04:25].
Taya Graham:
Now, even though police have already handcuffed a man for no alleged crime along with his seventeen-year-old stepdaughter, they are not done showing what can only be described as sheer contempt for the law. That’s because the teen’s mother, Jennifer Kretschman, watches the arrest as it unfolds and demands an explanation, as is her right, but the police are having none of it. Watch how the officers respond and tell me, and I do not say this lightly, are these the heroes that we’re supposed to back without question? Just watch.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Hey, you better get your fucking hands off my daughter.
Speaker 7:
You’re going to stay right there.
Jennifer Kretschman:
If you ever touch my daughter again-
Speaker 7:
You’re going to go into handcuffs too. You’re going to go into handcuffs too if you do not back up.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Name and badge number?
Speaker 7:
Davis-167. Please back up. Please back up.
Jennifer Kretschman:
That is my daughter. Don’t touch me.
Speaker 7:
Please back up, or you’re going to go into cuffs too.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Do not touch me.
Speaker 8:
Let me tell you what’s happening, do you want me to tell you?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Please do buddy.
Speaker 8:
You’re not going to the car.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I would like to check on my child.
Speaker 8:
She’s fine. Let’s go over here.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I just watched her get yanked out-
Speaker 8:
Okay, listen-
Jennifer Kretschman:
17. She’ll be 18 in December. She goes to the Met.
Speaker 8:
So listen, listen. They’re conducting a traffic stop on the car. The car was not stopping for probably the last two miles.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Traffic… Why?
Speaker 8:
I don’t know.
Taya Graham:
So again, the officers on the scene use the threat of handcuffs to suppress dissent. They literally threaten to jail a mother whose only crime is to demand an explanation. No statement of probable cause, no articulation of reasonable suspicion. Only the allegation he had not stopped for two miles, for an unmarked vehicle with tinted windows. But it gets worse, much worse. See for yourself.
Jennifer Kretschman:
They have no right to be in my car.
Speaker 5:
Don’t talk to me, I’ll talk to you. What you need?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Who are you?
Speaker 5:
I’m the supervisor right now. Who are you?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Okay, what’s your name and badge number?
Speaker 5:
I’m Johnson-272. So your car is going to get towed today.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I’m sorry, say that again.
Speaker 5:
Your car’s going to get towed today.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Why?
Speaker 5:
And your daughter and your husband are going to jail. What else do you want know?
Jennifer Kretschman:
My daughter is 17.
Speaker 5:
I don’t care.
Jennifer Kretschman:
You don’t have a right to take her to jail.
Speaker 5:
She resisted arrest and she’s going to go to jail for arrest.
Jennifer Kretschman:
You can’t-
Speaker 5:
I absolutely can. I absolutely can.
Jennifer Kretschman:
No. Why would would you arrest her?
Speaker 5:
Why would I not? She resisted arrest.
Jennifer Kretschman:
She’s 17. You must have a reason to arrest her, a lawful reason to arrest her.
Speaker 5:
Do you understand your husband and your daughter just ran from police for the last seven miles.
Jennifer Kretschman:
They did not.
Speaker 5:
They didn’t?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Run?
Speaker 5:
So the camera wouldn’t lie?
Jennifer Kretschman:
What do you mean run? I just watched you pull my child-
Speaker 5:
We haven’t… Lighted them up, conducting a traffic stop for the last seven miles. They did not pull over.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What? For seven miles? Why did he say two? So get your story straight.
Speaker 5:
Talk to me, I’m the one that pulled her over.
Taya Graham:
Now I want to stop the video right here. Besides the fact that the story has completely changed, her fiance has driven seven miles instead of two as the officer previously stated, the sheriff refuses to answer a fundamental question. What is his probable cause for searching the car in the first place? While it’s true, due to a Supreme Court ruling officers can search cars without warrants if it is on a public street. They cannot do so without probable cause. Just listen again as the officer is asked this question and see if he answers it.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Why did he say two?
Speaker 5:
I don’t know.
Jennifer Kretschman:
So get your story straight.
Speaker 5:
Talk to me. I’m the one that pulled her over, so talk to me.
Jennifer Kretschman:
No, you weren’t. I watched this dude with the beard, pull her out of the car.
Speaker 5:
Which is in my vehicle. So get your facts straight if you’re going to talk about it.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I watched the dude with the beard, okay.
Speaker 5:
Perfect, he’s with me.
Jennifer Kretschman:
That’s the facts and that’s what I saw.
Speaker 5:
Okay. So your daughter is going to go to jail.
Jennifer Kretschman:
My daughter’s 17. Do not touch her.
Speaker 5:
17 year olds can go to jail.
Jennifer Kretschman:
For what?
Speaker 5:
For resisting.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Resisting what? You had no reason to grab her out of the car.
Speaker 5:
Okay.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I know my rights and I know her rights.
Speaker 5:
We’ll discuss… okay-
Jennifer Kretschman:
We can discuss whatever you want, but you’re wrong or you know it.
Speaker 5:
No I’m not.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Yes you are and you know it.
Speaker 5:
So again, again. Again, thank you. Thank you.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Because this is a complaint against you for touching… who is driving my car?
Speaker 5:
Your husband.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What is happening right now?
Speaker 5:
That’s getting towed, that’s leaving.
Jennifer Kretschman:
My car is? Why?
Speaker 5:
Well, if you want to tell me how the law goes, you should already know why.
Jennifer Kretschman:
I don’t have any understanding. I only know my daughter says there’s a bunch of cops-
Speaker 5:
You want to come over here and address us in regards to what we’re doing.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Yeah, because I watched you rip my daughter out of the car.
Speaker 5:
You watched me?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I watched the gentleman with the beard, and you know what I’m talking about.
Speaker 5:
Okay, okay.
Jennifer Kretschman:
But you talking to me this way. You’re here to protect and serve. I’m here working. I get a phone call from my daughter.
Speaker 5:
You should have a good conversation with your husband then.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Okay, I can have a conversation-
Speaker 5:
Driving the way that he’s driving with your daughter in the car, if that’s what you’re concerned about.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What is the driving like? I don’t even know.
Speaker 5:
We have literally been trying to pull him over for the last seven miles. He is not pulling over. It’s called a pursuit. He’s running from officers.
Jennifer Kretschman:
What happened with my daughter though?
Speaker 5:
She resisted getting out of the vehicle. Did you see guns pointed at your vehicle? Did you see guns pointed at your vehicle?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I couldn’t. I was too far away.
Speaker 5:
Okay, so you didn’t see the whole thing going down, correct?
Jennifer Kretschman:
No, but my child’s out here.
Speaker 5:
So are you showing up late the game? Can we make that clear?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I want you to stop talking to me like I’m an idiot, because I’m not.
Speaker 5:
Okay, I’m done here.
Taya Graham:
So that’s not really an answer, is it? What does that mean? What law does that invoke? What exactly does that have to do with meeting the legal threshold to seize and search of vehicle? I am genuinely confused. But now with legal sufficiency cast aside, what do the officers do next? They search the car. No, search is too mild a word, they ransack it. Observe.
Speaker 7:
A bunch of lock boxes. There’s one in the back too.
Speaker 3:
Narcan. She might have dope on her. You might’ve had her stuff the dope somewhere.
Taya Graham:
She might have dope on her. So I think that’s a revealing comment. That’s because the police at this moment know they did not have a legal reason to drag two people from a motor vehicle and put them in handcuffs. It appears they’re looking for a post-hoc justification because it’s revealing what has not been articulated at this point. They didn’t accuse him of speeding, they didn’t claim he was driving erratically, they did not cite expired tags or some other technical violation. Because of their silence, I think it’s safe to infer they saw someone they didn’t like the looks of, and without evidence, arrested them. And as you will see, they turn to a playbook that police used for decades to incriminate otherwise innocent people when they screw up; the war on drugs. See for yourself.
Speaker 3:
I’ll get under that dash on that side real good because you could see that she was moving around, making those furtive movements under here.
Speaker 7:
Oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 8:
You guys want me to… [inaudible 00:10:58] back to my car.
Taya Graham:
So I just want to stop here for a second. Not to make some caustic comment, but just to read something to remind all of us why this matters. A founding principle, so to speak, that is often ignored or forgotten. The text of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which most definitely applies here. Call it a notification from the constitutional rights emergency broadcast system, if you wonder why I’m doing this. All right, here it goes. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall be issued but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. Now, watch the rest of the search and decide if these officers have ever read this.
Speaker 9:
Are they rulers?
Speaker 7:
Probably not.
Speaker 3:
Can we pop the trunk? Is there a female coming so we can search here?
Speaker 5:
Do you get bus?
Speaker 7:
I got a bunch of burnt foil and then white powder falling out.
Speaker 3:
Where?
Speaker 7:
Right here.
Speaker 3:
Under the dash? Yeah.
Speaker 7:
No, it came out of this. So all that just fell out of here.
Speaker 3:
That was what was shoved between the seat. Yeah, it’s in that envelope.
Speaker 7:
All the dopes in the envelope?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 5:
What is it?
Speaker 3:
Looks like Fetty.
Speaker 5:
Is it.
Speaker 3:
Or Coke?
Speaker 7:
Probably.
Speaker 5:
All right, so both of you real quick [inaudible 00:12:46].
Speaker 9:
All right. She didn’t have nothing on her, I just searched her.
Speaker 3:
Huh?
Speaker 9:
I just searched her, she got nothing on her.
Speaker 3:
Okay. He was trying to hide this then.
Speaker 9:
All right, you want me to close [inaudible 00:12:55]?
Speaker 5:
Into the back.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah. It’s wrapped up in one of these pieces of paper.
Taya Graham:
Mm. So it looks like Fenty or Coke. Interestingly, the officer who has just discovered drugs does not actually show to the camera what he has supposedly discovered. They don’t even seem concerned about preserving the evidence, something that will make sense later as this story unfolds. They don’t even put on gloves or take precautions to protect themselves from these dangerous drugs. But for now, they continue to pull apart the car amid innuendos that there are drugs. A process that includes a male officer physically searching a seventeen-year-old girl. Take a look.
Speaker 5:
All right, so both of you can go back here then.
Speaker 9:
All right. She didn’t have nothing on her. I just searched her.
Speaker 3:
Huh?
Speaker 9:
I just searched her. She got nothing on her.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Looks like Xanax.
Here look under this seat on this side again under though, because he shoved this notebook, was helluva shoved all the way down.
Speaker 5:
In there?
Speaker 3:
On that side, driver’s side.
Speaker 5:
You’ve already found it over here?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I already pulled it out. Looks like it might be Xanax.
Speaker 7:
Crushed out Xanax?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, if you look, there’s zanie bars in there too. It’s wrapped up in that yellow notepad paper.
Speaker 7:
[inaudible 00:14:14].
Speaker 3:
Did you see anything there?
Speaker 5:
Is he on status or anything? Olson?
Speaker 9:
They haven’t ID’d him [inaudible 00:14:34] .
Speaker 5:
Well what the fuck are they doing?
Speaker 7:
You’re getting her ID? She’s not [inaudible 00:14:34].
Taya Graham:
I want to freeze this frame right here and look at the documents the police had seized. A voter registration form. Now what makes this worth noting is something we have argued on the show over and over and over. Bad policing is meant to discourage civic participation. Corrupt cops erode our political efficacy. And as you will hear later, that’s exactly what happens. But even with intrusive searches yielding nothing, police continue, seemingly fixated on punishing the family. Just watch.
Speaker 7:
Somebody moved it on top of this seat. So where did this notepad come from originally?
Speaker 3:
Stuffed in the side.
Speaker 5:
Driver’s side.
Speaker 3:
Driver’s side. It was stuffed in between the seat and this center island.
Run these two names. Jacob Palkovic.
Speaker 9:
That’s the driver.
Speaker 7:
DJ?
Speaker 5:
What?
Speaker 7:
He’s got mail in his name inside of here.
Speaker 5:
Okay.
Speaker 7:
Put it on my camera.
Speaker 3:
And foil.
Speaker 7:
And burnt foils.
Speaker 3:
Did you open that up, were they zanie bars?
Speaker 7:
They looked like zanie bars. I opened it up maybe more than you did now.
Taya Graham:
Well, I’m so glad the officers found this whole thing funny. Truly. I’m glad that terrorizing two innocent people and then tearing apart their personal possessions is humorous to them. I think we can clearly see how police regard us, the public. How little they take into account their harmful actions can literally turn our lives upside down. But one thing they are aware of is the body camera. And now amid a fruitless search, the supervisor asks an interesting question. Are you still on? And after he asks it, the officer turns off his camera. Just watch one more time.
Speaker 3:
I’m on.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:16:18]
Speaker 3:
I’m finished searching.
Taya Graham:
Now the supervising officer says something we can’t hear and the officer turns off his camera. I wonder why. But there is much more to this story than what you just witnessed on the body camera. And that’s because after all the invasive searching and aggressive tactics, I think you’ll be surprised, or perhaps even shocked, at how police charged this case. And for more on that, we will be joined by Jacob’s fiance and the mother of the teenager swept up in this arrest, Jennifer Kretschman. But first I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been looking into the case and reaching out to the sheriff’s office and researching the law. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So first, what were the charges and what is the sheriff’s department saying about the case?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, the charges are really questionable in this case. They charged him with evading, simply not stopping for a police vehicle, which as you can see in the actual video, there’s a lot of questions about that, which I’ll get to later. But in terms of the sheriff’s comments, we sent them an email, they have not responded yet. But really I think on this scene, the sheriffs made clear what their comment was about this arrest, which is contempt for the public. It was pretty clear they didn’t want to answer questions… Actually scratch that, they were just basically defiant, saying we don’t have to explain what we’re doing to the people on the scene. So there’s your comment. If I get anything more, I’ll mention it in the chat.
Taya Graham:
Now that seems like something that would be a secondary offense, right? Doesn’t there need to be an underlying crime to justify that?
Stephen Janis:
You know Taya, it’s really interesting because basically evading is a crime of intent. So what are the components of intent? The components are that you’re being pulled over by marked police car with officers in police uniforms. And if they’re not, one of the defenses is you can say, “Hey, I didn’t know it was a cop car.” And I think in this case, with the evidence that we’ve seen on video, I think that defense could hold up. In fact, I think it’s preposterous that they charged them with evading, when they clearly weren’t dressed like police officers. They were just randomly touting guns, jumping out at people. In this era when we have a lot of road rage and crazy stuff happening, how can you blame someone for being scared and not wanting to pull over? So really I think intent is a big question here, and I don’t think these charges will hold up anywhere.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, we’ve reported extensively about the destructiveness of specialized units and militarized policing. What is your take on this in the context of aggressive policing and its impact on communities across the country?
Stephen Janis:
Well Taya, let me quote the famous Frank Serpico who uncovered police corruption in New York City police department in the 1970s, said, “There’s no such thing as a crooked cop, just crooks and cops.” Well, I will say this about specialized units, people in jeans and T-shirts running around randomly pulling people over, pointing guns, are not law enforcement. They’re not enforcing law, they are lawless. And this is the problem with specialized units. They inherently, aesthetically, are lawless and they do things that endanger people. They don’t help us with public safety, and I’ve covered so many of them, I can’t even count. It is a bad way to police, it is destructive for the community and it needs to end.
Taya Graham:
And now to learn how she has been fighting back against police overreach and how it’s impacted her family, and what she plans to do to hold police accountable, I’m joined by Jennifer Kretschman. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me.
Jennifer Kretschman:
Thank you for having me.
Taya Graham:
So let’s just start at the very beginning so we can help people understand what happened here. You were at work and you received a frantic phone call from your daughter. What did she say?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I’m sitting at work. I get the phone call and I’m like, “Where are you guys?” Ready to just tell them… because they’ve probably stopped and done something. And she’s like, “Mom, mom, we’re being chased,” or followed, I don’t remember the exact verbiage. But I’m like, “Slow down, tell me what’s going on.” I can’t really understand her because it’s like muffled, like arguing or something. I learned it wasn’t arguing, it was just like, “What’s going on? Turn around.” And I could hear him telling her to look and see, “Look at them, tell me are those cops? What’s going on?” She’s like, “Mom, I think that we’re being pulled over.” I’m like, “What do you mean you think?” I wasn’t understanding. “What do you mean you think, is there a car behind you? Is it a cop car? Does it have lights on it?” And well, she’s like, “I can see lights in the window, but I don’t think it’s a cop car.” And I’m like, “Well, you have to be able to see the sides of the car.” And she was like, “Jacob, go to the side.”
And she’s trying to tell him to get over a lane and he wouldn’t get over a lane. He was just at that point was just focused on going straight, figuring out what’s going on and trying to get to my work. And I said, “Where are you?” And she’s looking around for identifying landmarks and she said, “We’re almost to your work.” “I’m going to head towards parking lot right now, and you guys just pull into my work.” And I’m thinking that either if it’s a cop, they’ll just slowly pull into the parking lot behind my work and that’s the biggest thing I’m going to have to deal with. If it’s someone trying to carjack them, when they turn into a busy parking lot they’re probably just going to speed ahead.
And then as I’m approaching, and I’ve lost track of where CJ went, which is my daughter, and I can see a scuffle on the other side. And I see other vehicles, actual police vehicles coming onto the scene now. So I’m really confused because what went from, “We might be getting pulled over,” it went to this huge police scene in a matter of less than a minute. And so when I get there, I was not the calmest, I will say that. I see men in my car digging through stuff. I see a guy with her pink backpack in his hand and he’s going through it. He has a baseball cap on. I’m assuming he’s some type of undercover person at this point because there’s multiple police cars. And I said something probably not very appropriate, but get your hands off my daughter with some foul language in there. And then he threatened to arrest me, pushed me backwards, and I’m like, “Okay, I just need to get to my daughter.”
Taya Graham:
Something I think that’s really important to explain is how your family perceived the car following them. The police described their driving to a safe place, the parking lot of your workplace as evasion. So I would assume your husband was driving the speed limit and obeying traffic rules as he drove roughly one and a half or two miles to your workplace. Tell me, how did your family perceive the men in the car?
Jennifer Kretschman:
From what I understand, Jacob started noticing this black SUV with guys in baseball caps. I want to say some had them forward and some had them backward and he swears he could see the barrel of a gun. And so then she’s like, “I’m calling mom.” And so these men, there’s no badges, no uniforms, they have on baseball hats, sunglasses, what they learned later were bulletproof vests. In the police report it says, it says Sac Sheriff in big yellow lettering on the front and back. That was not true. You could see a Sac Sheriff in black lettering kind of from behind, and I have multiple videos of that as well. When they got out of the car and I could see them, they were wearing jeans and Converse tennis shoes. One guy had on khaki cargo pants… nothing would’ve told me they were law enforcement.
Taya Graham:
Why did your fiance respond this way to the men in the car? I could understand him thinking maybe it was a road rage incident or even a carjacking.
Jennifer Kretschman:
So Jacob is from South Phoenix. He has had a history. He has had many experiences with law enforcement. He has tattoos on his neck and on his arms and on his body, so he knows what it’s like to be profiled. So he knows law enforcement side, he knows if it’s gang members, he knows that in no scenario is this a good scenario when you have a group of men that don’t look like law enforcement asking you to pull over, because they’re nudging and he can see them all doing like this, or something like that. And so that’s why CJ was so scared and confused because she’s like, “If it’s law enforcement and you don’t pull over, this is bad. If it’s a gang and you don’t pull over, we’re going to get shot.” The first man said they were in a high-speed chase pursuit for two or more miles, which that’s not even possible, but I was like, “Okay.” And then Johnson, the driver of the vehicle, said they had been chasing him for seven miles. When the police report actually came out, it said one mile, 1.1 miles or something like that. According to CJ and Jacob, it was about a mile.
Taya Graham:
So your family wasn’t actually accused of any traffic violations, right? What traffic violation did your fiance commit to get pulled over? What was the crime that led to these charges of resisting arrest?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Taya, that is such a wonderful question. One that I asked many times throughout the entire incident that was never answered. In fact, when it was answered, it was they resisted arrest. “No, no, no. I want to know why they were being pulled over.” “Because he wouldn’t pull over.” “No, no, no. Why was he being…” Not one time… hold on, let me clarify. At one point in time he goes, “Well, he doesn’t even have a driver’s license.” And I said, “He has two. He has one in Arizona and one in California. I know when we went from one state to the other that he got… I remember I was there. So, no.” And that was the end of it as far as them attempting to tell me a reason for the traffic stop initially. I got nothing else.
Taya Graham:
There are so many things that I found problematic with the arrest and the treatment of your family, but the way you were treated was, let’s say less than courteous. How did the officers respond to your questions and your concern about your daughter who was a minor, and would you say the officers were being professional?
Jennifer Kretschman:
Well, there was a lack of professionalism, but they responded as though I was the criminal. They responded as though my daughter and my fiancee were criminals, and… well, they told me they were. They told me they were, I would say 10 plus times, they’re going to jail. Your daughter, your husband, they’re going to jail. And every time I said why I got no response. I was told to stand back, stand in the shade, stand under the tree, get out. I was told I was interfering with the investigation. But literally when Detective Johnson came up, and he was the supervisor on scene, I said, “What is your name and badge number?” And then told me I didn’t know the law, I’m coming late on the scene, I didn’t have my facts straight, and then proceeded to tell me that they drove seven miles in pursuit. They just treated me horribly. I would never want them to treat anyone this way. They searched my car illegally and then they towed it, towed my car. It was just like the icing on the cake. They had gone through this whole scenario and in the very end were like, “And we’re going to cost you a thousand dollars just because we effed up.” And I think it was just to make it look like they did something legitimate.
Taya Graham:
I assume your car was being searched without your consent. And when you reviewed the body camera footage, were you surprised by the things that the police said? For example, they said they found Xanax bars in a piece of paper and tin foil that was burned and white powder residue, and yet none of this evidence was ever shown on camera. And you and your family were not charged with drug possession. Surely if there were drugs in that car, they would’ve charged you as the owner.
Jennifer Kretschman:
No, there were no drugs in our car. There were no tin foils in our car. We had lock boxes in our car. And this is… I should have mentioned this when you asked about the treatment of us. We do Turo, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, it is like Airbnb for cars. And so basically it’s people can come and rent your car, and they pay you just like Airbnb if they came and rented your house. And so we have two or three cars that we have done this for just as a little side income. And so they have a lock box when people come to come rent your car, they get the key out of it and drive away.
Well, they came over and when he’s telling me all of this about the drug paraphernalia, I’m like, “What? What?” And then he asked about the lock boxes and I think he thinks that that’s some sort of drug hiding place, or I don’t know what he thought it was. But I’m like, “No, we Turo our cars.” And so then when I watched… they had a piece of body cam footage where they’re talking about us and I could hear it in the background. He goes, “Do you think they’re realtors?” “No.” And they’re laughing about us. We’re not good enough to be realtors or something.
Taya Graham:
So interestingly, I thought I heard an officer say to you, “If you keep asking questions, you can go to jail too.” Did I hear that right? What did he actually say to you?
Jennifer Kretschman:
You did hear that correctly. That was, I believe, Masterson. Yes, you heard that correctly. And the way I gauged it, he really looked up to this Gang Suppression Unit, like they were the cool guys. And so he was repeating all the stuff they were saying to him. And it was so maddening and I was nowhere near… well, there was no scene. Anyways. And that’s the thing, you had asked earlier too, when I saw them searching my car, I literally said to them, I’m like, “Stop searching my car. Get out of my car. I do not give you permission to search my car.” And that’s when they told me there were multiple reasons that they could be searching my car right now.
Taya Graham:
I heard the police officer say something interesting. He said, when you were concerned about the way your daughter was yanked out of the car, he said, “I wouldn’t be mad at the police, I would be mad at your daughter.” And they also made fun of your daughter saying that she was a minor. How did their discussion of your daughter and their treatment of her make you feel?
Jennifer Kretschman:
To be honest, I had never even heard what you just said. I didn’t hear them making fun of her like that. I saw it and I saw them not caring about me getting to her, and evidently she was asking to see me the whole time too. She could hear me asking for her and she was crying and they wouldn’t take her to me. And so I literally told them about her trauma too from when she was a child, and how I needed… I just wanted to be with her even if it meant I had to stand outside of the car. Because in the beginning I didn’t know, I knew she didn’t do anything wrong but I didn’t know. And for them to make fun of her…
What’s horrible too is there’s not one snippet of body cam footage with her being arrested… anything that happened to her. And I’m assuming that was intentional because in the court case they said only one of the arresting officers was wearing their body camera, which wasn’t true. They had not one image of her body camera, of an officer arresting her. And I’m worried that they’re going to see that or the public’s going to see that, and think badly of her and have opinions about her, and not consider the fact that she’s still a 17-year-old who’s being manhandled by these large grown men. They called her the B-word, and that’s what she told me, as they were arresting her. And they told her she was going to jail, there was no question about it.
And then they put her in the back of a police car, drove that police car away from me to the parking lot, and they allowed a male officer by himself, behind a door, to search her, physically search her. And that’s where her abuse is. They kept saying she must’ve stuffed the drugs somewhere. They threw her in the back of a police car and left her there and had some uniformed officer check in on her once or twice. And every time they promised that she was going to be taken to me and she wasn’t brought to me until the very, very end, which was probably close to an hour later. I know she has PTSD and I know that she needs me right then.
Taya Graham:
I’m so sorry. It is so terrible to hear about your child being spoken about like that. How long was this whole process and were any of your family taken to jail and what were the charges?
Jennifer Kretschman:
So from the time I got the phone call, which was about 16:40-ish, until the very end of the incident when my whole family was returned to me, was how I see it, was about an hour. No one was taken to jail. An ambulance came for Jacob because he couldn’t breathe. He was in the midst of a panic attack and he had injuries from when he was 18. They searched him again. They walked to the back of the… I think he was going from the police car to the EMTs and they searched him again, searched very well, because they were so insistent that they had to have something. Of course, I have nothing.
And then when they walked over, at the very end Jacob comes walking to me, he’s a mess. CJ is just frazzled and just like, “I want to go home. I want to go home.” They say, “You can’t take your car. Your car is being towed.” And then of course I said, “Why?” But then I just stopped because I was so grateful that I had my family with me, I didn’t care what they did with my car at that point in time. And I didn’t want to say anything that would jeopardize anyone going to jail. And he was charged with evading a police officer, failing to yield to a police officer and resisting arrest.
Taya Graham:
So how did you handle the charges?
Jennifer Kretschman:
He went to court in December. They wanted to see what he wanted to do and he said I wanted to fight it, and he would not agree to a guilty plea. And so we met with the public defender who said absolutely, and tried to get the body cam that she couldn’t get it the first round, they wouldn’t release it to her. The second round they only sent over some of the uniformed officers. And so evidently at some point in time she was able to get some other body cam. And on the day of his court case, she called and said that the district attorney had watched the video footage and said that the cop’s behavior was insane and that the charges were all dropped.
Taya Graham:
How much has this cost your family financially or emotionally? What has the personal cost been? I know this has been traumatic for your daughter.
Jennifer Kretschman:
There’s all sorts of costs to this. One, it’s emotional and psychological. And I don’t even know if that’s the right word for it, but at work I feel like everyone looks at me differently, treats me differently. No one even confronts me about it. And I didn’t even take it back to my office and show anyone until the charges were dropped, because I was so afraid that they wouldn’t believe me because they probably wouldn’t. Law enforcement’s never wrong. So it’s cost me… For me personally, there’s no amount of money that I could say because that’s my reputation and my livelihood and it’s my work.
It’s cost my daughter her graduation with her peers, her friends. She honestly just totally withdrew the whole first semester. And she wouldn’t blame it on this because kids I don’t think can correlate the dates, see how things happened, but it was so obviously that anyway. So the whole last five months of her life have been in disarray.
The tow and the actual costs were about probably $1,200 in the end when the four or five days without the car. So in October I was like, “I don’t know why I am feeling so stressed and I can’t seem to focus at work and all of this stuff.” And so then I started seeing a therapist, CJ went back into therapy and Jacob started seeing a chiropractor and all of that. There’s all of those things too.
Taya Graham:
When we were talking earlier, your request from the police was just so small. You just said it would be fair for your family to be reimbursed for the money you lost due to your car being impounded, but honestly, I think you deserve an apology from the department. What would you want to say to the officers if you knew they were listening to you right now and what would you want from the department?
Jennifer Kretschman:
I would want to tell them that when they went into law enforcement, their goal was to truly protect their community and serve their community, then they were not meeting their goals. I would want them to think about if it were their mother or their daughter or their sister or their brother, that was just coming home from school, drinking a mango smoothie and to be attacked and harassed by a group of men. My daughter had a gun pointed at her head and so did my fiance. It’s like they had real life guns that could kill them pointed at their heads. I don’t know the fear that that brings because that hasn’t happened to me, but I can imagine that they will never feel safe again, especially because these are the people that are supposed to be protecting you. So it would’ve been better if they weren’t law enforcement and they were a gang because at least we would be able to feel safe in our community afterwards.
Taya Graham:
We noticed that the police picked up a voter ID card in the body camera footage. And what is such a coincidence to me is that when people are arrested or harassed by police, they lose their political efficacy and they feel like they don’t have any impact on government and their voice doesn’t matter, and so they stop participating. And it’s actually something I wanted to discuss.
Jennifer Kretschman:
This is the first time I haven’t voted. What does it matter anyways? That’s literally how I feel now. I used to be so one-sided and now I just don’t even care. And I’m not to say anything against all the work that you guys do, I know that… And that’s why I’m putting this out there. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me or my family, things have to change. They just treated us like we were trash. And I don’t know, like we were criminals, but I don’t even think criminals should be treated that way. We’re just all human beings trying to get by in this world, but these are not the people I want protecting my community. That’s all I can say.
Taya Graham:
Now, I have so many thoughts on the actions of police that we just dissected for you, I barely know where to start. It is so hard to really put into words how troubling it is to witness police perpetuate this injustice against two innocent people. But since it’s part of my job and the promise we make at the beginning of the show to do so, I’m going to try.
So the first point I want to make is fairly straightforward. There is no explanation or excuse for what we just watched on the body worn camera. There is no justification that law enforcement can conjure to burst out of a car with guns drawn in plain clothes to terrify this family. So let’s just dispense with any pretext or police propaganda for the moment.
What I really want to parse here has nothing to do with weighing the police explanation versus the extensive interviews and reporting on this story. Instead, I want to talk about the idea of cruelty. Now, I know that sounds odd. What does the concept of cruelty have to do with a flawed, if not illegal, traffic stop? I mean Taya, this isn’t a philosophy class. Well, let me explain. When I watched these videos and spoke to the family, I was struck by how casually these officers deflected the concerns about their lawlessness, their disregard for how disruptive their actions were for the people on the receiving end was just stunning. But what hits me even harder is the outright contempt the cops had for the people in that car, that even after they had screwed up, they continued to double down and became, for lack of a better word, meaner. Simply put, they became cruel.
It was a glimpse into a reality we all know about. But it was so stark and transparent that it left me with another alarming concern. That this example of overly aggressive policing, so easily dismissed by the people who execute it, is as much a threat to our way of life as the crime it purports to stop. Just consider the words of Jennifer, our guest, when she said, “We’re all human beings trying to get by in this world.” It’s an important sentiment echoed by the 19th century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote a book called Human, All Too Human. It’s a collection of aphorisms that touches on all aspects of simply being human. And in it is a quote that I think is applicable to the ordeal we have reported on today. Nietzsche wrote, “The mother of excess is not joy, but joylessness.”
And that’s what we witnessed on the body worn camera, the excessive use of police power and the joylessness that ensues from it. The trauma, the economic harm, the psychological duress are all the result of excess law enforcement. The fear, the terror, the civic paralysis rooted in the act of police overreach. It’s a collection of social ills, so disturbing, that I think the question actually is, do we really understand how this aggressive form of law enforcement affects us in ways both less obvious and sometimes completely unacknowledged? Because while I don’t truly know how effective or even useful this style of policing is, I do know it is clearly and unequivocally dehumanizing. It is, put simply, not an instrument of justice or process of public safety, but a strategy to turn citizens of a democracy into supplicants of a police-driven autocracy. That’s right, because any civil society where police can do that to innocent people is simply not as free or as fair as advertised.
Now, don’t get me wrong, we live in a democracy. Our voices matter. Our rights matter. What we do matters. But democracy is fragile and it can easily be eroded by bad actors who don’t respect its principles or believe in its importance. Therefore, all I can conclude from what I’ve watched, is that these officers could care less about it. They seem to me completely devoid of respect for the law, comprehension of the constitution, and more importantly, why it all matters. And even more troubling is that they are the agents of excess that drain our lives of the joys of freedom. They simply seem disconnected from the truisms and the beliefs that tie us all together, our humanity. They seem to believe that the law is predicated upon vengeance, violence and cruelty, not the idea that we are all presumed innocent. It’s a tool to harass, terrorize or otherwise menace people that you don’t like, instead of a shared set of rules that govern all our lives. Not negotiable boundaries that can be crossed just because you have a gun and a badge. That’s not how this social contract is supposed to work.
I know this is strong language, but watching those cops is like seeing a collection of fascists within our midst. Not law enforcement officers, but rather inequality warriors who only want to divide us, cage us, enrage us and conquer us. And as our guest told us, she was so shocked and demoralized by the behavior, she didn’t even vote. Now, how’s that for backing the blue?
But at the same time, we should also take another lesson from this disheartening example of police abuse. We must remember that we have the tools to fight back against this roving oppression. We, the people, can counter the cops who think by illegally putting us in handcuffs, they have defeated us. Well, let me be clear. They have not, they cannot, they will not. And how do I know? Because I am here telling you this story. Because even if these officers feel they can freely violate the Fourth Amendment, there is still a First Amendment that stands in defiance of them. And it lives here on this show and on this channel, and it lives in Stephen and it lives in me, and it’s in our hearts and our minds that we are determined to use it to inform you. We can ensure that the actions of these officers are not kept secret from the public. We can produce this show, highlight the evidence, expose the wrongdoing, and otherwise inform the people who matter; you, our viewers, our community, the people who believe our rights matter.
I know all of this might seem underwhelming when pushing back against men with guns and badges and a decidedly bad attitude. Maybe that the power of the pen might seem somewhat insignificant against the cowardly bravado of four plainclothes cops in a tinted SUV, but don’t underestimate that power. As one of the people who wrote the Constitution intended to preserve our rights noted, the pen is indeed mightier, and let’s show the powers that be how that works.
I want to thank Jennifer for coming forward and bravely sharing her experience with us. Thank you, Jennifer. I wish you, Jacob and CJ the very best in receiving the apology your family deserves. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Stephen Janis, for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you Stephen. And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey R for their support. Thank you Noli D. And a very special thank you to our Accountability Reports Patreons, we appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next live stream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R, David K, Louis P, Lucida Garcia, and our super fans, Shane B, Kenneth, K, Pineapple Girl, Matter of Rights and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or @eyesonpolice on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment, I do read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have our Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountabilityreports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated.
My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
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