The Welfare Check Body Cams | BONUS

**Stephani** (0:04)
Hey, it's Stephani, back with another bonus episode.
Before we get to episode 10, I want to explain a bit about Laura and her mom's interaction with the Scottsdale Police. In November and December of 2023, the police were dispatched to Laura's house for a welfare check on her, at least four separate times. Two of them were recorded on officer body cams, and have been made public. Today, we're going to play you those recordings. You'll get to hear from Laura's mom, Jan Black, and from Laura herself. They tell the police their side of the story. We lightly edited them to cut out dead air or repeated information, but we've left these mostly intact, so you can hear the whole interaction.
We're starting with the welfare check on December 12th, 2023 Laura's mom Jan is the one who answers the door. And just a heads up, you'll hear the officer's phone buzzing from time to time.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:03)
Hi, there.

**Jan Black** (1:05)
Is Laura here? Yeah, is this, is somebody called in a welfare truck about her? Yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:11)
Yeah, it's a friend from New York. I don't know if you know who that might be.

**Jan Black** (1:15)
No, what I do know is that she is the target of an online harassment campaign that has been going on for months. Okay. And one of the things that they wanted to do, it was started by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of hers.
And he started posting all of this crazy stuff about her on Reddit, stuff that is unbelievable. And so he has encouraged people to do, to call in the Scottsdale Police Department and ask her well for a job. This is like the third one in a week. Okay. And I had contacted the, I mean, she called in and talked to the Scottsdale Police Department as well, and said, you know, we don't want your resources, this is ridiculous, it's a prank thing.
But I'm happy to go get her, she was taking an amp. This has been devastating beyond belief.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:22)
Is she asleep now?

**Jan Black** (2:23)
She's taking a nap, but I can wake her up.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:26)
I don't think that would be necessary.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:28)
It's okay. Well, so I don't, for some reason, it wasn't in our notes for your address. I'm going to put comments in there that says this is an ongoing prank. Right. They still may send, we have to understand because if we don't, if it's not us on or it's not the same dispatchers, they still might just send on it.
But I would work on trying to contact Reddit and let them know.

**Jan Black** (2:56)
She has contacted them. They will not take it down. They will not take it down. And this guy, he's created different fake accounts.
He, I mean, it's-

**SPEAKER_4** (3:10)
He's going to Great Lakes. Have you looked into an adjunction against harassment?

**Jan Black** (3:16)
She has against him. She's- This is part of his- Part of his thing. She's had this against him for two years.
And-

**SPEAKER_1** (3:24)
Oh, this is an old ex-boyfriend then?

**Jan Black** (3:27)
Yeah. Oh, wow. It's an old ex-boyfriend. And she had the adjunction against harassment against him. I mean, he's really-
Another friend of ours who is an FBI profiler had looked at, you know, what this guy is all about, and she said he's the kind of a person who is not gonna stop unless he thinks he's got a win.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:52)
Okay.

**Jan Black** (3:53)
And he had said to her, he texted her, I will destroy your life, I will destroy your reputation. And that was two years ago, and he's just continued this.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:03)
Is he local here?

**Jan Black** (4:05)
Yeah, he's local.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:06)
What's his name?

**Jan Black** (4:07)
He's local. His name is Grace Velasquez.
But he could have called from a fake number, or like I say, he's tried to start stuff online. She contacted the Scottsdale Police Department with a lot of instances of these, and they sent it to the prosecutor's office. And the prosecutor's office said that they didn't think they could get a conviction on it. They said there was a lot of stuff, but they didn't know if they would be able to get a conviction on it. So I think that one of his motives is to try to make it so that when her order against him comes up for renewal next year, that he can say, well, look, you know, she's, you know, she's crazy. You know, look at all this stuff that he's posted online about her and, you know.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:54)