09x13 - School resource officers

[bunniefuu]

LAST WEEK TONIGHT
WITH JOHN OLIVER

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight",
I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week,

including, least importantly,
the Queen's Platinum Jubilee,

marking her 70 years on the throne,
which featured the royal family

appearing on the balcony
of Buckingham Palace,

multiple cakes shaped
like demented corgis,

and one school doing whatever the f*ck
this absolute living nightmare is.

It was basically a four-day celebration
of everything that the Queen loves,

with one key exception.

The question was what to do
with a problem like Andrew,

and it seems
like that's taken care of itself

because we have the news
that he tested Covid positive.

I think a lot of people out there
are questioning the validity of that

'cause it's very convenient.

He did test positive, they said,
so he must have a certificate.

Do you think that people
will demand to see that certificate?

I don't think
they're going to get to see it.

I don't think that they will either.

Based on what generally happens
to information about Prince Andrew,

that Covid test will probably
conveniently commit su1c1de in prison.

Or you know what?

Maybe he'll pay us all millions
of pounds to stop bringing it up.

Those do seem to be
his two go-to moves.

But instead of focusing on that,

we're actually going to start
with our main story tonight,

which concerns what happened
in Uvalde, Texas 12 days ago,

when an 18-year-old
armed with two AR-15's

k*lled 19 children and two teachers
at an elementary school.

We all know what the key problem
is here. It's g*ns.

It's because we let whoever wants
to buy a g*n in this country have one.

Which has led
to tragic consequences.

The vast majority of mass sh**t,

including the sh**t
at Uvalde and Parkland,

obtained the weapons they used
through legal purchases.

So, we know what the answer
to this problem is, too.

It's g*n control.
It's meaningful, effective g*n laws.

But that hasn't stopped
some from desperately pitching

absolutely anything other
than that as a solution.

The only solution is Christ Jesus,
and being able to get some type

of spirituality and prayer
back into our schools.

Man traps. A series of interlocking
doors at the school entrance

that are triggered by a tripwire.

I would like to see this,
a national push toward,

instead of parents buying their kids
all these tools and toys and games,

invest in the classroom
to make it safer.

They have blankets
that you can put up on the wall

that are colorful and beautiful,
but they're ballistic blankets.

What are you talking about?

"Use a blanket"

is not a strategy for stopping deaths
during a school sh**ting.

It's barely a strategy
for "a bird got in the house".

And while those ideas are ridiculous,
"hardening our schools"

often comes up
as an alternative to g*n control.

And at the NRA convention that
inexplicably still took place in Texas

just three days
after the sh**ting there,

Wayne LaPierre
pitched the same solution

that he did after Sandy Hook,
and after Parkland.

We also need to fully fund
our nation's police departments

and school security
resource officer programs.

Exactly. Put police,
or school resource officers, or SROs,

as they're sometimes called,
into schools.

I guess it's not that surprising that
the solution from the CEO of the NRA

is more people with g*ns,
because it'd be like hearing,

"The garbage dump is overflowing,
so we need more piles of garbage",

from the head of the
National Raccoon Association.

What else
do you really expect him to say?

But the idea
of adding police to schools

does seem to come up in the wake
of every big school sh**ting.

And crucially,
it's then the thing that we always do.

In the six years
after the Columbine m*ssacre in 1999,

the federal government
"awarded over $750 million,

resulting in the hiring
of over 6,500 SROs".

And since then,
it has exploded to the point

that the most recent data available
shows 58 percent of American schools

report having a sworn
law enforcement officer on campus

at least once a week.

And this has happened

even as vital resources
for students have been starved.

A recent report found 14 million
students go to a school with police

but without a counselor, nurse,
psychologist, or social worker.


proximity to a pair of handcuffs

than they are to a medical
or mental health professional.

And to hear some cops tell it,

there is upside to their presence
that goes far beyond school safety,

that they're also there to build trust
in police from an early age.

Do you think every school
should have a police officer at it?

Unfortunately, yes, it's sad,
and if you think of it morbidly.

But, if you think of it building
relationships for our future…

Why not? It wouldn't hurt.

Wouldn't hurt?
Are you absolutely sure about that?

Because, little secret, if we are
showing you something on this show,

it could absolutely hurt.

There has never been a moment
where we've shown you a clip

where a cop goes, "Wouldn't hurt,"
and we've said,

"You're right, Officer Big Man,
it wouldn't!

Anyway, that's our show,
have a great weekend!"

So, given that once again, in the wake
of yet another school sh**ting,

we seem poised to throw more cops
into our schools, we thought tonight,

it'd be worth
talking about school police.

Whether they are the answer
to this particular problem,

the answer to any problems,

or whether they're actually
a pretty big problem themselves.

Let's start by acknowledging that this
idea isn't just coming from the NRA.

It's coming from parents, too,
like this man,

who back in February, showed up
at a county council meeting.

Alex Turner tells us he is all in favor
of the idea of adding SROs.

Just for the simple fact that they've
got a force multiplier in the school

where they could stop some imminent
thr*at to our children.

Turner has two young children,

and his wife works
at a school district in the county.

What scares me the most is the thought
of her having to use a backpack

to defend herself
from someone with a g*n.

Our children are the most important
thing to our future.

They're future taxpayers,

they're future citizens that
are going to invest in our community.

Obviously that guy calling children
future taxpayers is a little bit weird.

Although who among us has not walked
into our sleeping child's room,

become overtaken
by the serenity on their face

and thought to ourselves,
"What a miracle."

"I wonder if she'll grow up
to file with a W-2 or a 1099."

"Parenthood truly
is a joyous mystery."

But I do get
what he's trying to say there.

The thought of someone
coming into a school

and hurting your child
is incredibly scary.

I don't think that all people
who believe that police officers

make schools safer have bad intentions
or are arguing in bad faith.

But I do believe
that they are wrong.

Because for the record,
the answer to the question,

"Do police in schools deter
school sh**t?" is basically, "No."

Experts who've studied this
have found that school sh**t

were not deterred due to the presence
of metal detectors, locked doors,

security cameras,
or school resource officers.

And if you're thinking,

"But what about when a sh**ting
is actually happening?

They could stop them then, right?"

Don't be so sure.
Famously, both Uvalde and Parkland

had school police officers and things
still went the way that they did.

Instances of school police stopping
sh**t are actually incredibly rare.

There was one example
four years ago,

but when the Washington Post
looked into it after that,

they could only find one other case
in the preceding 19 years

where a resource officer
gunned down an active sh**t.

It's much easier to find stories

of sh**t stopped by faculty
and school counselors.

But rather than arguing
anecdote by anecdote,

it might be helpful
to look at the larger data.

Because on the whole, an analysis
of 179 sh**t on school grounds,

which is a brutal thing
to say out loud on its own,

found no evidence that the presence
of school resource officers

lessened the severity
of school sh**t.

If anything, they can actually make
it worse, as this researcher explains.

When we've looked at this,

and looked at school sh**t
and attempted school sh**t,

what's remarkable is that when you
have armed officers on the scene,

you actually see more casualties, often
because that perpetrator is suicidal.

They're familiar with that school,
they know that officer is there,

and so they come in heavily armed.

And if school cops
can make sh**t worse,

why, then, are we still
pitching them as a solution?

If discovered that their mosquito
repellant attracted mosquitos,

they'd stop selling it.

Or, at the very least, rebrand it as a
cologne for lonely mosquito bachelors.

The evidence for cops in schools
deterring school sh**t isn't there.

And the evidence for the damage
they can do is significant.

So, for the rest of this piece,
let's actually put sh**t aside,

and consider the very real impact
that school police can have on kids,

every day that they are there.

The National Association
of School Resource Officers,

essentially,
the trade group for these officers,

will argue they serve many functions
in schools way beyond security.

They even developed a triad concept
of school policing,

that suggests an SRO
should simultaneously be

a "teacher, informal counselor,
and law enforcement officer."

And I will say,
there are undoubtedly schools

where some kids
see their police officers that way.

You've probably seen
videos of them

doing carpool karaoke
in their squad car with kids,

or doing a fun dance
at their halftime show.

Some have even joined kids
in extracurricular activities.

It's not every day
that you see the campus police officer

taking on the role of cast member
in the school musical.

She showed up at our first rehearsal,
our first dance rehearsal, I was like,

"Why is Officer Griffin here?
Is someone in trouble?"

But then everyone was like,

"No, she's joining the show.
She's gonna dance with us."

And I was shocked.

Shocked because prior to her
participation, most of these students

were intimidated by the officer tasked
with keeping order on campus.

It's true.
A cop was in the school musical.

Imagine how challenging
that casting decision

must have been
for the theater teacher.

"Susie has a fantastic vocal range,

Hannah B.
really learned the choreography,

Jillian's a senior, so it does feel
like it's her time to get a big role,

but Officer Griffin has a g*n.

So, I guess I'm just going
to go with Officer Griffin."

But clearly, tap-dancing
Officer Griffin here is not the norm.

While school police
in more well-resourced schools

often do have an expanded role
including education and mentoring,

in disadvantaged schools,

they're more likely to engage primarily
in law enforcement activities.

And for all NASRO's talk
of the triad model,

when they asked their members which
prong they identify with the most,

over two-thirds
selected law enforcement.

Because of course they did.
They're cops.

Most cops don't get into copping
because they want to be counselors.

They do it
because movies make it look exciting

and they're tired of stopping
at red lights.

That's why they do it.
And the problem is,

faculty and school administrators
will sometimes use those cops

to deal with basic
disciplinary problems in the school,

as this teacher explains.

I see that teachers
have neglected to figure out

a way to handle a lot of problems
on their own that they used to.

Things that were up to the teacher
before are now just a phone call away.

How many of your peers
are just picking up the phone

and calling
the school resource officer?

I'd say the majority of teachers
are doing that.

Definitely 75 percent out of all of us,
if I just want to make a rough guess,

are doing that, because they go in
with a set lesson plan

and when the kid doesn't want to do it,
I get him out of the classroom.

Yeah, but that's not good. And I know
teachers have an exhausting job.

And, for some reason, society
has decided that their reward for that

is insultingly low pay
and occasional thank-you apples.

And it's not the point here,
but, why apples, exactly?

Why have we decided

to reward teachers the same way
we reward mediocre horses?

Because the good horses
get sugar cubes.

Am I saying teachers should get
sugar cubes instead of apples?

I'm not not saying that,
but the larger point is,

while I understand a frustrated,
overworked teacher

wanting a troublemaking kid
out of their classroom,

involving the police in that is a very
dangerous impulse for many reasons.

One of them is, police in schools
can, and do, arrest students.

In the most recent year recorded,
they did this to over 54,000 of them,

which is a huge number.

If you asked me,

"What do you think happens


"I dunno, the number of classroom pets
that went missing

because a student
left the lid off the cage"

or "The number of times a teacher
lost total control of her class

when any part of her private life
was revealed."

"My god, she had her computer
hooked up to the projector

and an e-vite from someone
named Jim appeared.

Who is Jim? Are you in love?
Will you have his babies?!"

And if you're thinking,

"A kid must be doing something
really bad to get arrested in school",

not really.

Students have been charged with
as*ault for throwing a paper airplane,

a baby carrot, and Skittles,

and drug possession
for carrying a maple leaf.

And when a "five-year-old
with ADHD had a tantrum",

they were charged
with "battery on a police officer",

when the only thing they were guilty
of was being a f*cking five-yearold.

And take what happened
with Kiera Wilmot.

When she was a high school student,

she tried to replicate an experiment
that she'd seen in class,

where you set off a chemical reaction
in a plastic bottle

to make the cap blow off.

And I'll let her, and then her mother,
explain what happened next.

The principal and vice principal
were, like, about 10 feet away,

and when it popped, they came over
and asked what was going on,

I told them it was a science project
and they were just like, "Okay".

At the end of third period,
they take me out

and then walked me
to the resource officer.

He was like: "It's considered a felony.
I might have to arrest you for this."

And then I was just handcuffed
and put in the car.

A trained officer of the law arrested,
put my daughter in handcuffs,

put her in the back of a police car,

and took her
to the juvenile assessment center

and charged her
with two felony charges.

That is so f*cking stupid
for so many reasons,

one of which is that when you hear
"felony for a science experiment",

you're thinking meth.

If I gave you 500 guesses
for what science experiment

got someone charged with a felony,
your first 499 guesses would be meth,

and the next one would be,
"Are you sure that it's not meth?"

Never in your wildest dreams
would it be popping a bottle cap.

Unless inside
that bottle was some meth.

I should say, the charges
against Kiera were later dropped.

But she still had to check the box
on her college application asking,

"Have you been arrested?"

And, as crazy as this sounds,
she was technically lucky,

in that at least she had press coverage
of her ridiculous arrest

that she could direct the college to.

But that is obviously not the case
for many, many others.

Kids with criminal records can have
a much harder time getting jobs,

scholarships, and a host
of other benefits and opportunities.

And while it's true that you can apply
to have your juvenile record sealed,

usually once you turn 18, there is
no guarantee that that will happen.

So, an arrest alone
can still do significant damage,

as some of those
involved in this system will admit.

I think we certainly see a lot of cases
that we think, "Seriously?"

Garnette says
close to 70 percent of the time,

her probation officers decide
the offense isn't serious enough

to get referred to the district
attorney for criminal charges.

But even in those cases,
much of the damage is already done.

The child can still be left
with a criminal record?

It'll still show an arrest
on their rap sheet.

Yes, absolutely.
They've been arrested.

If the case comes to us,
they've been arrested,

whether they were put in handcuffs
and brought to us

or given a slip of paper by the police,
they've have been arrested.

And is that fair?

I mean…

I don't think it's fair.

That was a long pause!

And it's not a great sign
that a chief probation officer

is responding to the question
"Is the justice system fair?"

like they're stalling for time
on "Jeopardy!"

after accidentally buzzing in.

And I will say,
at least she is acknowledging there

that the system
has a significant problem.

What is absolutely maddening
is watching this former director

of student services
for the county where she works

try to make excuses for it.

No student
that's attending our campus

is getting a criminal record
because of something we've done.

We don't focus on arresting
or sending kids away.

That's completely counter
to what an educator should do.

- But that is what's happening.
- Not in my school district.

But in a single school year,


were referred to police.

- Okay…
- So, it is happening!

Kids are cited on our campuses
sometimes, yes.

And do you know that this can
give them a criminal record?

I know what happens
when I issue my own consequences.

I don't know what happens
when police issue their consequences.

So, you have no idea that these kids
are getting criminal records?

I wouldn't know
that one way or the other.

But don't you head discipline
for the district?

And I take care of discipline
for the district.

If consequences go beyond that
into the legal realm,

that's not our purview,
that's not our business.

Holy sh*t, that is selective.
Not your business?

No, my good bitch,
that is very much your business.

I do understand the distinction

hat budget Bill Murray
is trying to draw there.

There is school discipline,
which falls under his purview,

but if a kid breaks the law,
then it's a police thing.

But in practice, once you let
the police into your schools,

that line gets really blurry.

And you're going
to start getting stupid arrests

for things like science experiments,
or throwing baby carrots,

or, in the district
where that guy worked,

the indefensible arrest
of this autistic student.

Two years ago,
Adrian was at his school,

Bret Harte Middle in San Jose,

when he used a small rock to etch
the letters "ADRX" on the sidewalk.

The abbreviation is how Adrian often
signed his name on school assignments.

The letters measured six inches tall.
But the school believed

they were big enough a reason
to involve campus police.

Adrian was arrested at 13.

I thought maybe someone
would look at it and say,

"A legend that did this. It's so cool!
A legend was at this school".

For the record, that kid was,
and remains, a legend.

Because to 13-year-olds,

there is simply nothing cooler
than initials written somewhere.

It doesn't matter where,
or with what.

All that matters is that initials
are somewhere, and that is cool.

On a desk? Yes, please.
On a lamp post? I love it.

Way high up on a wall?
How did they get it up there?

We even put Adrian's initials
onto the set behind me

to make it absolutely clear to everyone
that a legend was very much here.

That story is completely bananas,
before you learn the letters he etched

came off with some soap and water
after his mother had him clean it up.

But it also speaks to a bigger issue,
students with disabilities

are almost three times
more likely to be arrested,

even though kids
with developmental disabilities

can have difficulty
understanding or following the rules

and require support staff
familiar with their specific needs.

And they are not the only students
disproportionately singled out.

Because cops in schools
do tend to behave

the same way they behave
outside of schools, which explains

why Black students account for nearly
a third of all students arrested,

despite the fact that that is
twice their share of enrollment.

That is just one reason why,

while you may hear a lot of white kids
talk about their friendly SRO,

Black students even in the same school
may see them very differently.

It was almost like this man
was judge, jury, and executioner.

And he was menacing-looking.

Literally, he walked through the halls
like he owned the place.

Every conversation
you had with him was tense.

It was literally
just students of color.

I don't think, even the Black SRO
that we had at Southwest,

I had never seen him
speak to a white student.

They knew who they were looking for,
they had their kids low-key terrorized.

There are so many students
who would've had a great time

but had a horrible time because
of an SRO or because of a cop.

The presence of police can make
school miserable for some kids,

and we frankly don't need
any more ways to make school scarier.

It's already terrifying enough.

If you asked me what is the
scariest place I can imagine,

it's not a haunted house
or the inside of Tom Cruise's brain.

It's high school.
Because remember, I was this.

And it's not
just low-key terrorizing.

You may be familiar with viral videos
of school cops behaving violently,

videos that sometimes went on
to make awful headlines like these.

Because cops in schools enjoy all the
protections they do everywhere else,

the consequences in many
of these cases can be nonexistent.

In Osceola County, Florida,
an officer was filmed

"throwing a female student to the
floor" knocking her unconscious.

But he wasn't charged
with any wrongdoing.

And his supervisor, the county sheriff,
fully supported that outcome.

A lot of things are never going to look
pretty on camera, but guess what?

This worked out, and it's a positive
thing for law enforcement.

Sheriff Lopez
defending Deputy Fournier's actions,

despite criticism
and public scrutiny.

It's unfortunate that the young lady
went through this incident,

but it's also unfortunate

that my deputy had to suffer a lot
of constant bashing and harassment,

when he just did
with how he was trained.

I honestly think
no one makes a better case

for defunding the police
than the police themselves.

If throwing a kid to the ground

and then having your boss complain
about how everyone was rude to you

is emblematic of how you were trained,
then the problem is the training,

the cops themselves,
the entire system and, not for nothing,

that sheriff's
fake Oakley sunglasses.

But the sheriff of Flavortown here
does raise an interesting point.

School police get trained as cops,

but that might be
the only training they get.

Because requirements vary widely
in each state, if they exist at all.

And national training requirements
for school-based law enforcement

simply do not exist.

And when you've got law enforcement
stationed in a school,

taking ordinary disciplinary situations
and escalating them,

the consequences, as you have seen
tonight, can be truly terrible.

In researching this piece,
we found so many stories

where kids are still traumatized
by the experiences that they had,

even years later, and felt it both
changed the trajectory of their lives,

and how they interact
with the world.

If you are over a certain age,

this is so much more prevalent
than you might think.

We don't have
a particularly large staff,

but multiple members of it
have come forward

as we put this story together
this week,

citing terrible behavior
by school police

they'd either directly witnessed
or experienced first-hand.

And we're not even getting
into the fact that schools with SROs

have higher rates
of exclusionary discipline,

things like suspensions
and expulsions,

than comparable schools
without SROs,

which has been shown
to be associated with

"lower academic achievement,
dropout,

and increased behavioral problems
both in and out of school".

When that guy that you saw earlier
argued for more police in every school,

saying, "Why not? It wouldn't hurt",
the answer to that is:

"It absolutely can,
and it does, all the time".

For all the arguing right now about
how we need more police in schools,

I would argue that we may
actually need significantly less.

And small reforms
are not going to cut it here.

Some places have tried that, with
tactics that kept the police in schools

but tried to make them appear
less intimidating.

About five years ago,
some districts in Minnesota,

where that kid went to school,

redesigned their school police
uniforms to light-blue polo shirts.

Something that, unsurprisingly,

students there, including him,
saw right through.

Every day, I go to school
as a young Black male teen,

and I have to see our SRO
just wandering the hallways.

He's always in our classrooms.
He's always in the hallways.

Your compromise
is to give them softer outfits?

That doesn't make sense.

At the end of the day,
a cop is a cop.

Whether you dress them up in red,
yellow, blue, it doesn't matter.

He's right.
Teenagers aren't stupid.

You can't send the cop uniform
to a farm upstate.

They know what is going on.

A cop is gonna be a cop,
no matter what we dress them up in.

Fuchsia? Still a cop.
Vermillion? Still a cop.

Cher's dress from the 1986 Oscars?
Still a cop.

And now they're wearing something

they couldn't pull off
in their wildest f*cking dreams.

There are some slightly
bigger steps that we could take,

like demanding school districts
adopt rules

that keep cops
out of routine student discipline.

And we could also require
that they have comprehensive training

that includes de-escalation and working
with students with disabilities.

Or we could just try
and get them out of schools altogether.

Some cities, like Oakland, California,
have done that.

And I am not saying it is simple.

There is still a thoughtful,
ongoing conversation there

about how to handle routine discipline
or emergency situations.

Because they know
getting rid of school police

doesn't mean walking away
from school safety.

What it means is asking ourselves
what really keeps kids safe.

And I would argue that one good wa
to do that might be to take the money

that it seems we're now inevitably
about to flood towards school cops,

and instead direct it
toward counselors, nurses,

and all the other resources
that actually protect students.

School police are not the answer
to school sh**t.

The answer to that is g*n control.

When we throw more cops
into schools

as an easy way out of that difficult
and necessary conversation,

we not only fail to keep our kids
safe from g*n v*olence,

we condemn them

to a system that criminalizes
the very essence of childhood.

Kids deserve to be annoying
without being arrested,

to be sad and angry
without being body-slammed.

They deserve to have tantrums,
throw carrots, do science experiments,

talk sh*t,
and carve their name into stuff

without risking ending up
in the back of a police car.

They deserve to be curious,
to make mistakes,

to go a little too far,
to be a little too loud.

To basically be a f*cking kid.

And they definitely deserve
better than the fundamental lie

that the only thing that can stop
a bad guy with a g*n

is a good guy
who can arrest a five-year-old.

And now, this.

And now…

People on TV Get a Little Too
British for the Platinum Jubilee.

Welcome back to Fox 5 News
live in Las Vegas.

I am your British correspondent,
Ken Smith here.

Good morning, everybody,
or should I say, cheerio, you chaps.

- Cheerio.
- Cheerio to you, too.

- Cheerio. Pop, pop, pop.
- Cheerio!

Hello, governor!

- Let's go across the pond.
- Across the pond?

Across the pond, we've got
to make sure our posture's okay.

- Okay. Cheerio.
- We're going to celebrate the Queen.

The Platinum Jubilee.

So, does that mean that Deena will read
the news in her accent tomorrow?

- Gosh, I hope not.
- I'll use the accent all morning.

So good!

Going to wait for our tea
and crumpets this morning.

A spot of tea.

As we watch our Queen
do her celebrations.

I'm not the best,
but sometimes I kick into it, so.

- A for effort.
- My bad.

That's like Mrs. Doubtfire.

- Hello! That's all I have.
- That's Mrs. Doubtfire.

Just do the rest of the show
in a British accent.

I don't think I can.

There are questions about whether she
will be able to attend her celebration.

What, why?

It's because of health issues,
so I'm going to drop the accent.

Moving on. I know this has been
a very grim couple of weeks,

so before we leave, we wanted to talk
about something that's just fun.

Specifically, bananas.
The very worst part of a banana split.

The reason I want to do that
is that there is actually some urgent,

breaking news about bananas.

To be honest,
it's not really urgent.

Or breaking, this happened last
November. It's barely even news.

But it is something
that I do want to show you,

mainly because
it is simply amazing.

Vandals have attempted to sever

the top of a controversial banana
and skull sculpture in Fitzroy.

The vandal appeared out of nowhere
last night,

concealing his identity,
his motive unknown.

Yeah, that happened.
A giant Australian banana

in a Melbourne suburb
was vandalized with a saw.

And by the way, what a banana!

It's basically the Cate Blanchett
of banana sculptures,

in that it's a hauntingly pale
Australian creature

with a very striking bone structure.

And if you're wondering,
"Who would do a thing like this?"

It turns out, a lot of people
there had a motive,

because this banana
was not universally beloved.

The controversial
$22,000 dollar work

highlighting climate change
was funded by the TAC,

part of a council project
to slow local traffic.

Even in quirky Fitzroy,
this banana split local opinion.

Brightens up the place.
It looks good.

I think our money
can be spent a lot wiser.

What is that supposed to represent?
Could you tell me?

Yeah, people were pissed off
with that banana.

And it is true,
the aim of the sculpture

was that it would remind
the community

about road safety
by forcing people to slow down.

Although I would argue that this
is less of a reminder to slow down,

and more an encouragement
to speed up

in order to get away from this demonic
f*cking banana as soon as possible.

But as for this woman's question,
"What is it supposed to represent?"

We can actually help answer
that for you.

The sculpture
is entitled "Fallen Fruit",

and according to the artist,
the piece represents…

This idea of hubris or overconfidence
within our western society

and the way that we've been drawn
towards kind of unsustainable excess.

That is not the statement that
I thought that banana was making!

The statement I thought it was making
is, "I am a big, weird banana".

I was clearly way off there.

Sadly, the banana
was removed after the vandalism,

and was recently replaced
by this giant yellow flower pot,

which is clearly
not even close to as good.

And there is now no sign of
whether the banana will ever be back.

Which is a huge shame.
Because what is the real problem here?

It's not like Australia isn't full
of ridiculous, enormous statues.

There's actually a proud tradition
of Australian big things,

gigantic sculptures of common objects,
like The Big Banana,

which demonstrably
lives up to its name.

This giant koala bear,
who looks absolutely mortified.

And this massive crocodile
with boxing gloves whose role

is to entice tourists to visit
the very real town of Humpty Doo,

a statement so offensively Australian

that, if it were not true,
it would actually be r*cist.

But since the citizens of Melbourne

seem to think
that their money has been wasted,

I might have a solution for you.

Because I will gladly
take that banana off your hands.

We have long had an interest
in Australian artifacts on this show.

You may remember that we bought
Russell Crowe's jockstrap

from the movie "Cinderella Man"
at his divorce auction,

inadvertently funding the John Oliver
Koala Chlamydia Ward at the Zoo.

I promise,
it all made sense at the time.

The point here is, Melbourne,
I am willing to buy

that giant banana off you
for exactly 10 Australian dollars.

Plus a $10,000 donation
to your local food bank,

and $5,000 to help further fund
the Koala Chlamydia Ward.

But, wait, I'm not even done.

Because you may also remember
that we, too,

have a statue of a large,
belligerent reptile.

Ours is an alligator giving the finger
that we made for our confederacy show.

It has been sitting in our offices,
pointed directly at Dr. Oz's offices,

so it could tell him to go f*ck himself
when he came to work every day.

But as he is now gone,
and as of this week,

is the official Republican Senate
nominee in Pennsylvania,

we don't really need
our alligator anymore.

Which brings me to our full offer.
Because Melbourne,

I believe I have the replacement
statue that you are looking for.

If you take us up on our deal,
we will make those donations

and, as a sweetener,
send you this magnificent creature,

on a ship.

And frankly,
I think it'd fit right in there.

What could be more Australian
than a dangerous animal

telling anyone who comes near it
to go f*ck themselves?

So, if you take us up on our offer,
this guy is yours, Melbourne.

You have exactly one week to get
back to us. Send us your banana!

That is our show.
We'll see you next week, good night!