In a city scrutinized for its violence and crime, the conversation shifts focus to the role of the Guardian Angels, an all-volunteer group working tirelessly to maintain safety in New York City. Listen in as retired NYPD Lieutenant Commander Joe Cardinale shares insights on crime in the city, the perceived hesitance of New Yorkers in emergency situations, and the complex legal repercussions that can discourage civilian intervention.
Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast, sponsored by Kel-Tec.
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It’s his life mission to make bad decisions. It’s time for Florida Man.
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This is one of these stories that I know your mind’s eye will be more graphic than probably it was, but check this out. This, an example, kids, and you could use this as a teachable moment for the kids, how dangerous fireworks could be. So from Florida City, and big thank you to WSVN, U-Haul van seen on surveillance with a side splattered with blood following an accident involving fireworks. So the driver was desperately searching for help after, obviously, fireworks popped in his hand, maybe improvised, maybe homegrown fireworks, because, again, he had a U-Haul full of these fireworks. I’m trying to sanitize this as much as possible because some of y’all get kind of queasy thinking about blood. So surveillance video captured the victim’s injured hand. hanging, or whatever was left of it, hanging out of the driver’s side window. And, of course, you can see the blood. And, of course, I’m sure as the vehicle is moving, there you go, that’s the splattered stuff on the side of the vehicle. They believe that the victim was selling illegal fireworks out of a vehicle when one of them exploded in his hand. Yeah, Florida man, genius, lit one of them to show what the kids are a potential customer, how this thing works. We know how it works, Dopey. Miami-Dade police bomb squad also was called to help destroy the rest of the stash that he had in the vehicle. According to Florida police, the victim was not cooperating. And this story reminded me, growing up in Houston, my dad would take me out to Harris County, the county line, get some black cat. Remember the black cat fireworks? I used to patiently open them up, put the powder in one paper, and make a tight ball of it and put it into a Texas-sized red ant mound. Ants flying everywhere. I’m Sergio Sanchez. You’re listening to The Dana Show.
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Subway violence, attacks at a nightclub, all just mayhem taking place up in New York and Samson, all these headlines. My friend Joe Cardinale, he’s a retired New York PD lieutenant commander. Happy New Year, my friend. I’m so glad that you’re able to join me on the program today.
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Happy New Year to you too, my friend.
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One of the big stories was New York subway and his poor woman. She got doused with some accelerant and burned to death. And it was an illegal immigrant who was kicked out, came back in under Joe Biden. And we know what happened there. And I saw this headline that Curtis Sliwa, the guardian angels, man, talk about a name from the past guardian angels. I’m glad to see that. They’re still up and running. So can you just, let me start there. Can you describe what the guardian angels do? Are they all volunteer? Are they paid? How does Curtis run this operation?
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Absolutely not paid. All right. It’s a volunteer. Curtis started this a long time ago. Curtis is from my neck of the woods in Brooklyn. So I know him and he’s, you know, he’s dedicated to this. He’s dedicated his whole life to this, you know, public service in one form or another. And they, they’re a necessity out there. They’re not afraid to get involved. They’re going to, Do what Daniel Penny did. All right. And they’re going to go out there. They’re going to get involved and they’re going to be a force to be reckoned with out there. So it’s going to be something that they have to. People are going to see them. They wear the red berets, the red jackets, and they have been effective for many, many years because they’re just a force of three or four that run together, sometimes two. But people see them and people feel safer with them.
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Speaking of Daniel Penny and what came from that, he should never have been prosecuted, but he was. And you know one of the heartbreaking images, some of the heartbreaking… video from New York, was to see other people just walk by, even security people just walk by, and this poor woman, she was still standing, somehow she was still standing there just burning to death.
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Do you think… You know, Sergio, I watched that video, and I’ve been on there a few times about it, and he turned around, and this was something that the accelerant affected her and consumed her body so fast that it was just amazing. that anybody could even get in there. The cops tried. You couldn’t get in there. Once this happened, it was accelerated by the doors being open as well. So it wasn’t that anybody could go in there. There was no fire extinguishers at hand. They didn’t have a large blanket to try to put over her. And, you know, it was disgusting. I don’t know if anybody has ever seen that before. But, you know, to see that live is like people have to understand that this is just a disgusting scene. but the aftermath, though, but it’s just as worse. And I’m going to tell you something. It’s something that you cannot just run in there and do something with. The cops couldn’t even do that. And he stood there fanning the flames, this illegal migrant. And what’s the first thing that they’re trying to do? Make an insanity defense for him. They don’t even know what his frame of mind is. He was alcohol-induced rage, and that’s exactly what happened with this.
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The reason I mentioned that Daniel… The Dan Penny effect. Do you think law enforcement or just New Yorkers, just other people, are hesitant to do anything in a situation like this because of what happened to Dan Penny, where the prosecutors are misguided and they’ll go after the hero before they go after the criminal?
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You just nailed it. You just summed it right up. The prosecutors will go after the cops before they go after somebody else. The cops are handcuffed, and people like Daniel Penny are handcuffed from the beginning. This ADA brag, you and I have discussed them so many times and it just gets progressively worse because he has a political agenda that does not coincide with his role as a district attorney of Manhattan. He turns around and he prosecutes cops. He did it to Sergeant Provenzano. All right. He did it to him with the Apple at the Apple store incident. Uh, you know, it’s always something that he’s got to get political gain out of. All right. And that was exactly what happened with Daniel Penny. Daniel Penney did not intend to kill this individual. He tried to subdue him. And by the guy’s own prior drug use and his own fighting him, a tragedy occurred where he died. Daniel Penney most certainly did not try to kill him. But yet Alvin Bragg decided to bring charges against him, just like he did with President Trump, because it’s political gain for him. And he does not have the same… or what do you call them and figure to go after the true criminals. All right. He, they walk around and only the cops, and people like Trump and Daniel Penny are the ones that get prosecuted.
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My friend Joe Cardinale, retired New York PD lieutenant commander, my guest, Status Report New York, and it’s amazing how they stepped it up, security did. They stepped up security for New Year’s, and thank God we cleared the holiday, and that came and went now in the rearview mirror. But there are some enclaves, I understand, that are still seeing some violence because you’ve got a large illegal immigrant population. So what can you tell me? What’s taking place up in New York?
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Well, January 20th is going to be what’s taking place. And then you finally have, what’s his name? What do you call him? Mayor Adams. Oh, yeah, Eric Adams. Finally, he’s going to turn around and cooperate with ICE and everything. And I think when Tom Holman gets in there and does the job he has to do, when we round up, especially this Venezuelan gang, Trendel Agua, we need to get rid of them before anybody else. And you know what? They say we’re not taking them back. I told you my plan a long time ago to get them back. Put them on a C4 transport with a fighter escort with parachutes on their back and let them know they’re coming into the country. They’re coming into the country, and either you let us land with them or we’re dropping them over your most influential areas, all right? And where they land, they land. You go through what we went through.
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You probably have not seen this. I went fishing in the international, the Spanish media area, Nicaragua is threatening to shut down, kick out the U.S. base, the Air Force base that’s in Nicaragua if Donald Trump does a mass deportation, sends back about a quarter million illegals back to Honduras. Just a little side note there I think you would find interesting. Eric Adams can’t afford the bill, the multibillion-dollar bill of taking care of all these illegal immigrants. I’m not surprised that he’s done a 180, and now all of a sudden he’s pro-border security and kicked them out working with ICE. Didn’t he lift the sanctuary city designation in New York, or is that just a promise that he would do in the future? He did. He did, right?
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No, he lifted it. He said, we can’t afford it. But you know what? You know, he, he doesn’t, I said, I said a long time ago, you, you know, you should have thought about this before you designated us a sanctuary city, because what do you think was going to happen? And I know the neighbor because I grew up in a neighborhood where they had one of the biggest encampments. All right. And it was nothing but crime ridden area now because they were doing the quality of life crimes and they’re over there passing out on people’s front lawns and everything. And that was when, in the wintertime, I warned them. I said, this is wintertime. Wait until summer comes and they’re out and about. And sure enough, Quality of life crimes went through the roof. And it was, you know, being a former captain in the NYPD, he should have realized what was going to happen with this. Right. But he didn’t. Once again, the political face went on before the common sense face went on. And now he’s backpedaling, but it’s a little too late because now they’re entrenched into our neighborhoods, and we have to pick them out of there. And it’s on Long Island. Thank God the law enforcement and everybody that’s on board with it, they’ve been on board, and we fight it any way we can on Long Island because it definitely trickles out there, and they keep putting them out there, flying them into the airports over there as well.
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Joe, you take care of my friend. We’ll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER 02 :
You got it, my friend. Happy New Year to you and the family and everybody down there.
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Retired Lieutenant Commander, NYPD, Joe Cardinale.
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Let’s check that quick five headline.
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And now all of the news you would probably miss. It’s time for Dana’s quick five.
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Giant piece of space junk crashed into an African village south of Nairobi. The Kenyan Space Agency saying that the object, a metallic ring, roughly 8 feet in diameter, weighed about 1,100 pounds. Ooh-wee, man. Preliminary assessments indicate the space debris was a separation ring from a launch vehicle, which typically burns upon re-entry in the atmosphere. I find it surprising that it survived re-entry, but I also find it surprising that… that Kenya has a space agency. That’s good for them. I hope they’re working on some rockets, the Kenyan space agency. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in the news warning that Congress, warning Congress that the U.S. could hit the debt limit by mid-January. Yellen saying unless lawmakers act, she will need to take extraordinary measures to prevent the U.S. from defaulting. Oh, I hate the way she talks. Biotech startup hoping to bring a pill to market next year that could give dogs an extra year of healthy life. Keyword, healthy life. So this startup in Northern California called Loyal, they say that they have raised $125 million to develop the drug with the hope that eventually they could provide something for humans as well, a pill that could extend life. But I was doing the math on this. It would benefit if it was the other way around. Don’t you think? Like if we had a pill and give it to the doggies and they could extend life. Because what? They say that one human year is like seven years for doggies, right? So do the math on that. Like check it out. So if you give a doggie, you give the pooch a pill, they extend healthy life by a year. Well, reverse into… How much is that for humans? Like two months or just under two months? Like 1.7, 1.8 months? That’s it? Yeah, keep working on that. Holiday spending is up. According to MasterCard Spending Pulse, data released… A couple of days ago, retail holiday sales jumped 3.8% from 2023. That blew past the expectations of 3.2%. And President-elect Donald Trump to hold a big victory rally at Capital One Arena January 19th. I’m Sergio Sanchez. You’re listening to The Dana Show. I’m Sergio Sanchez. I’m in for my friend Dana Lash. Appreciate you being with us today. You can listen online as well. And Dana should be back with us early next week. Just in time to receive a nasty, nasty cold Arctic blast. Before I mention that, there was another story related. Oh, yeah, because I wanted to pair these two. There was a report showing homelessness in our country surged in the U.S. this year. The Department of Housing and Urban Development released data a couple days back that said the number of people experiencing homelessness went up an impressive 18% in 2024. Now, it’s a small sample that they used in that year. Family homelessness saw a major jump. Wow, an impressive almost 40% jump this year compared to the previous year. Meantime, the number of homeless veterans fell 8% this year to 2023. All this is, for me, all this is screaming inflation. Yes, the food costs more, the fuel costs more, the light bill costs more, and the owners of the properties, the owners of the apartments, of the condos, of those places that they’re leasing, they have to pay more, hence they have to charge more, hence the rent is more expensive, hence the food and everything. So it’s a vicious cycle, and not surprising. Oh, that’s real painful to see that the family homelessness number is up almost 40% compared to the previous year. And we can’t start this administration fast enough, the Trump administration. I’ve said for the longest time, I am a firm believer that if you decrease, number one, I don’t know if he can do much as far as the money supply, the glut of money that’s out there because we got too much money, too much demand, not enough supply. Yes, that naturally increases inflation. But there is one expense that maybe can help lower the light bill. Maybe it will definitely help lower the gasoline expense. Yeah, that’s fuel. America has been hogtied by the Biden administration. We have not been allowed to extract the natural resources, the God-given resources. that can help lower the price of the pump and help lower the price of diesel. This is unnecessary, what the Biden administration did to us. And I heard American families, working families, having to pay more for gasoline, having to pay more to, well, hopefully to this point, maybe they’ve been saving money on heating their homes. I know that’s an issue for folks in the Midwest and up Northeast and the price of this petrol, this oil, this fuel that you use for your furnaces. I know you guys are going to be firing that up here pretty soon. But if you increase the supply of all this fuel, definitely with time, with cheaper delivery to market of goods, that should translate into slightly, hopefully substantial, cheaper goods at the store, for all goods at the store, all groceries at the store, down the road. And as I mentioned, there’s a big freeze coming, a blast of winter weather. It’s going to hit much of the country. The deep south is going to get blasted next week. Lots of southern states, from Louisiana all the way to Florida. Lots of southern states. Even Texas we’re going to get. We’re not going to see that freeze-opelix apocalypse like we saw a few years back. That would be more like for areas, like I said, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, all the way over to Florida sometime next week.
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Thanks for tuning in to today’s edition of Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven’t already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
