Julian Dorey Podcast - 😳 [VIDEO] - The Undercover Narc Who Cleans Up Bodies | Laura Spaulding • #123

Episode Date: October 29, 2022

(***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Laura Spaulding is a former Undercover Cop & crime scene clean up expert. In 2005, she founded Spaulding Decon –– which now has over 40 locations across the United States and over 5 million followers/subscribers across YouTube & Tiktok. Crime Scene Cleaning YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv6ycrTS6JXAEfs5dFZfijg Crime Scene Cleaning TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@crimescenecleaning?lang=en Crime Scene Cleaning IG: https://www.instagram.com/crimescenecleaning/?hl=en “When the Cats Take Over” Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPdyoJPS88&t=772s Laura’s VICE Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmoeMJDe_Es&t=112s ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - The Fake Map of Florida; McDonald’s franchising 13:08 - Why Laura left the police to start Crime Scene Cleaning; Homicide detectives & PTS 28:11 - Laura’s story about witnessing police abuse on job; The problems with the current state of policing 37:38 - Alec Baldwin’s Rust Movie Shooting Case 43:54 - The problems with the US Jury system; Why cops don’t chase suspects 1:04:40 - Malcolm Gladwell’s NYC Bail Study; Kids never really grow up 1:19:20 - Laura details her undercover work; How Laura *transformed* her persona to go undercover… 1:36:36 - Empathy for criminals 1:52:07 - Term limits in congress; Why we’re getting dumber 2:00:27 - The earliest days of Spaudling Decon; How employees deal with trauma of the job 2:16:03 - Why Laura started documenting their work; The struggle of making “acceptable” content in a crime scene; Women love True Crime 2:37:06 - How Laura trains her employees; Why Laura thinks people watch her content 2:47:39 - Laura tells a story about how her content prevented a tragedy; The deeper meaning behind death 3:06:33 - Peter Thiel “Zero to One” Monopolies idea 3:11:08 - The VICE Video; Fans tagging Laura for expert opinion; Walter White crime scenes ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “TRENDIFIER”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They remove the body, but they leave behind the pieces of it that didn't come with it at that point. Right. So you're like, they're like picking up. Was that a wig? We thought initially that it was her scalp. And then we realized when we peeled it off of the bed, along with the skin from her neck, that it was a wig. At least that's what we're telling ourselves. And there was?

There was maggot larva nest inside there and you know what is that uh asmr is that what it's called when you when you're crunching the wig is that a thing yeah they crunch wigs my staff was obsessed with crunching the wig that's why we called it crunchy wig i don't think we got to that part of the video yeah oh it's painfully honest all right let me look at this shit scientology dumb pretty people i'll put this in the corner of the screen. Oh my god, this is so cool. Old people and heroin. Look at that shit.

Inexplicable traffic. Really old people. Future NFL player. Beginning of Latin America. Look at that. Oh no. Oh yeah. Your grandparents.

That's painfully accurate. Yeah. So I live where it says strip clubs and Scientologists, and it is 100% accurate. We are the strip club capital of the world. It's funny you say that. Danny Jones from Concrete, who I was telling you about, was just on this other guy, Pomp's, podcast down in Miami. And Pomp is like a former, well, he's not formal. He's a venture capitalist like he came

up in silicon valley at facebook like one of those people analyzes everything yeah and so they're talking about like the demos of like florida and why everyone's moving there and stuff like that and danny's like the true go with the flow kind of guy like he's not thinking about that like he doesn't care and so pomp's like yeah what tampa's really happening now huh and danny's like yeah there's a lot of fucking people moving here and he's like why do you think that is and danny's like well tom brady's there uh we got the lightning they're like really good apparently and i mean we got the best strip clubs in the world and you just see pomp like that's not what i was looking for yeah okay yeah he's right he's totally right i mean and the horses that's ocala ocala yeah it's uh what's okay kind of a suburb of

orlando it's all horse farms really yeah it's like in the center of the state and then cult like football fans that's fucking gainesville spot on right university of florida pretty dumb people dumb pretty definitely that yeah that's uh panama city you know i i can look at this and you could say hey where is the um you know beginning of latin america and i can say oh that's fucking miami yeah yeah it's it's amazing like it's so when you go down there it's really cool though because it's like it's ingrained you go down there it's really cool though because it's like it's ingrained in the culture of like the city 100 even the billboards are no longer in english i believe it yeah yeah yeah it's such a miami's such it's such a melting pot yeah but

i'll tell you it's the best food and diversity of food that i think and i've been all over the world um if you're like man i'm i'm from you know small town in haiti you can find a fucking restaurant that's a small town in haiti uh identical to it and that's not something we get in tampa the crazy thing about miami is it's such it's and it's actually always been this way. It's a very international city. Oh, 100%. There's all kinds, it has something to do with like the number of international flights that they take through that airport. And so then obviously, it's Miami. Like people like to stay, but that is a different country to me. It's like New York City with better weather.

Yeah. It has that melting pot feel to it. And it's become just as expensive it's it's getting outrageously expensive and uh they're losing the middle class there well the pandemic happened yeah tech moved there yeah and some of wall street moved there you know that the fact that i i was wondering if when they did it i'm like oh they're gonna be there for like a year and then be like, all right, it gets a little hot. We're going to go back there and come here sometimes. They like the life. Yeah.

It's a different lifestyle. It is. It's very laid back yet high class. It's a good way to put it. Yeah. You know what I was looking at, though, that I never thought about this? But, you know, you look at Miami and you're thinking, well, it's one of the biggest cities in the country, which even despite what I'm about to say, it is. Yeah.

The population's not that big, though. The population of the city is only like 450, 500 000 people something like that but what i have i don't even know if they could do data on this but what i haven't looked at yet is how many people are there at one time because the number of people who are just constantly there coming in right it's got to be in seven figures because it's a huge city oh it is everyone goes to miami yeah you know 100 so like when we do territory separation type stuff where we can't get a good accurate concrete number on miami because it it's so fluid so it's anywhere between six and eight million people that sounds right with all of the suburbs you know you've got kendall and you know

cape coral and all that kind of stuff and uh it's just it's such a huge city the diversity is is like nothing i've ever seen now because that same state is we're going to talk all about yeah your pages online are amazing for for people listening i'm sure there's plenty who have seen your work and as far as like the content. But for the business, like do you, because you're in Tampa, do you spend more time like also getting out to Miami as opposed to other places because it's close? You know, it's not that close. So it's about a four and a half hour drive one way. Right.

But it's at least, you know, it's not like jersey or something like that so it kind of knocks us out when it comes to oh my god we just had a a murder i need you to get here it's like right man it's gonna be five six hours till i get there so believe it or not we don't have a franchise location in miami the closest we have is west palm beach now that's only like an hour and a half it is but he's so busy and in west palm beach he can't even get to miami a lot of murders in west palm beach these days uh well you know with everything that we do you've got an elderly population right so they're all dying eventually and when does fast grocery delivery through instacart matter most when your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard.

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we desperately need somebody in Miami. Not just one location, we probably need three to handle that workload. I'll bet Miami's business is a booming down there. Oh, huge. Yeah, huge. And how many places do you have roughly nationally now that are yours? So we've got 46 as of today. Damn. Yeah, 46. And they're pretty spread out.

I mean, all the way from San Francisco to Montville, New Jersey. Yeah, so they're all over the place. And you were telling me, cause we're going to get into your background in a second for people just bear with me. Cause we'll explain everything, but you were just telling me off camera as well. You started this business in 05. You didn't start expanding it as far as like multiple locations until 2016. That was never in the plans to franchise It never was so in the past six years. You've added 40 some place. Yeah, it's probably been more with if you count the ones I kicked to the curb Wow. Yeah, it's closer to about 70 You know, but franchising is a different animal

It's something that you know, you could have the best sandwich in town and you could say, man, I have lines out the door at my restaurant. I want to share this with other people and I want to franchise it. And then the minute you franchise it, you no longer become that guy that had the best sandwich in town. You become the franchisor who is in charge of training guys to make the best sandwich in town you become the franchisor who is in charge of training guys to make the best sandwich in town so your life changes your business changes your priorities change um in ways that you probably never never expected it's also no longer you know because you're training people you give up especially in franchising you give up a ton of control oh tons you know you're pretty much like well i hope we trained them right you know well even if you train them right

that doesn't necessarily equate to them doing it right sure absolutely yeah people cut corners people want to you know uh we've caught people you you know, changing the uniform. I'm like, dude, that's not our uniform, you know? And they're like, oh, well, it was cheaper just to print it on one side. It's like, what the fuck? You're going to get that though. But you know, that's why you've got brands like McDonald's that, you know, they're charging you between two and four million dollars Yes to become a franchisee and I'm telling you from I know from experience and seeing other franchises in The system if McDonald's sees that you don't have the right decor. They'll literally come in there and shut your ass down Oh, yeah, and with no questions asked. Yeah, so it it blows my mind when people get into franchising in a smaller brand, you know, whether it's a blind, budget blinds or us.

And they're like, well, what do you mean I can't make my own t-shirt or create my own business cards? It's like, that's the whole point. It's branding and it's supposed to be the same whether you're in san francisco or tampa florida do you think some of that also is like people take for granted isn't the term i'm looking for but they don't think of like a franchise like yours like they would at mcdonald's because you're literally it's not like you're to the public most of the time when you actually have to do what you do, which is a really hard job. But like it's not like you're a storefront. You're coming in with the hazmat suits and cleaning up the worst thing to ever happen to somebody.

You know what I mean? So do you think some of them are thinking like, well, it doesn't really make a difference because like people don't even know. Well, yeah, that could be some of the mindset um but i'm seeing it with like different types of like for example i won't name a name but there's a convenience store uh that's a franchise and they're supposed to be buying all their stuff from corporate but they caught them going to sam's club and buying the same shit and they're like guys you know we have to have the same pickles every store and it's like well this was cheaper it's like that's not the point yeah the point is consistency and branding and they just either don't get it or they want to buck the system but my thing is if you wanted to buck the system create your own convenience store yeah and go buy your pickles from wherever the hell you want but don't come into the brand pay to be a

part of it and then say i'm gonna buy my pickles from from sam's club yeah it doesn't work no the whole point is supposed to be a form of like vertical integrate vertical in why can't i say that right now integration integration yeah i'm struggling on that yeah it's early but i usually record these at like three o'clock yeah usually so earlier than the day is earlier for me but i'm betting that if you walked into a mcdonald's in bangkok it would look identical to the mcdonald's in dallas texas yes and if it didn't you'd be like what the fuck something's not See, people come, they get used to that consistency. And that's the point of franchising. in europe and how their expansion worked and what they did right and i learned like again you kind of take that for granted because you're like oh i'm walking into a mcdonald's and that's the whole

point right they want you to feel like if you're walking to a mcdonald's somewhere else it is the same thing exactly and the only thing that they'll switch up is proper cultural things across countries, which you don't deal with that. Right. But, you know, everything else, exactly the same. Because they can find, there's a ton of people who would want to start a McDonald's because there's good money for them. Exactly. You know, they give a good deal.

Exactly. But in yours, I mean, let's go into exactly what you do for the people that haven't seen your page. Okay. But what's the name of your company and what are all the services you guys offer? Oh, boy. That's a laundry list. So the name of the company is Spalding Decon.

My last name is Spalding. Decon is short for decontamination. We started in 2005 as a crime scene cleaning company. So originally I was a police officer right out of college and this was gonna be my side gig essentially it was never intended to be my sole income or sole a business you didn't do this right away though as a cop no so i started as a cop in 1998 okay and then created this in 2005 got it so it was one of those things where, hey, you know, I'm looking for a business,

and it literally smacked me in the head, a light bulb moment of being at a homicide. And the mother of the victim was like, hey, when are you guys coming back to clean this up? And I'm like... It was like we stared at each other for a while and i'm like i didn't know what to say because i had literally in seven years never been asked that question so i thought oh we don't clean this up and she said well who does and i thought that's a great fucking question and i didn't know

so i went and asked some other people that were on the scene and they're like, oh, I don't know I don't know, you know, like nobody gave a shit and I was like this is horror Like it was a horrible homicide scene. Like it looked like he was on the couch looked like somebody had Busted through the door on purpose like they were looking for him shot him several times and he just bled out everywhere And you know, she finds him so uh she's trying to figure out you know i've got other kids how do i clean this up and so you know i went over to csi and i said you know you guys do this all the time who do you who do you use for this and they're like i don't know it's not our problem so i started doing you know kind of some

research and i'm like is this is this a business you know i hadn't thought about it and me in that position for that period of time had never thought about it the average american's not thinking about it no until it happens to you right you're not planning on getting murdered or someone i should say someone close to you getting murdered right and i guarantee you if you took a poll right now 90 95 of the people would say oh the police do that yeah because it's just kind of a common thing you would think that that happens but it doesn't and it's left to the homeowner when i first looked at your stuff though and this is part of the reason when we were in the car today i asked about the potential referral system or something like that but when i was first looking at your page which

that might have been two years ago now it's a while ago i kind of assumed without looking into it that you guys were just like the arm of law enforcement like you're not officially law enforcement but it's like oh call them up that's what we're doing and so enforcement, but it's like, oh, call them up. That's what we're doing. And so then I was – that's why I was still wondering today when I asked you in the car, like, do you get a lot of your business from some sort of referral from law enforcement? And you explained to me that doesn't – they're not allowed to. No, and you would assume that makes common sense, right? Yes. That that should be an arm, even if it's a contractual type thing. Like, for example, if you get in a wreck anywhere in this country, police come, they're going to make a report.

If your car is not drivable, they will call for a tow, and that tow is on a rotation based on a contract. So it begs the question, why is cleanup not on that same rotation of qualified companies to help these people out? So basically what they're saying is, hey, we're going to get your car off the road because it's a pain in the ass for other drivers, but you're on your own to clean up the blood in the house, and it's shitty. It's really shitty so you have some states like california where if a motorcycle guy gets gets hit killed and there's blood everywhere they'll actually pay a company like mine to come clean it up in florida and everywhere else the

fire department comes out and squirts it into the grass or into the curb on the side so you know little johnny's walking and riding his bike and he falls in a pool of blood uh that's where it's from wow you see you don't to your point you don't think about this kind of thing and i was telling you also i'm constantly fascinated by finding out about new types of all different businesses all the time because you don't think about these things and then once you hear about it you're like that's a business yeah but you then immediately think oh my god what if that didn't exist yeah what would people do and yours is one of them because i can't even imagine like you just had someone close to you murdered or and you'll get into some of the other stuff you do or like you know someone close to you murdered or and you'll get into some of the other stuff

you do or like you know someone close to you died in their home and wasn't found for a long time it's a nasty scene and and yet you have to instantly accept this and then once the authorities are done with whatever has to be done there it's like okay all now, chief. I can't even imagine having to take, that's like having to do the embalming of, in a different way of your own. It's a huge responsibility. And it seemed at that time and still today, it seems very callous to me to be able to say, it's not my problem. And that's literally what homicide detective said.

I said, Hey, you guys see this all the time. What, what do you do? He said, it's not my problem. And that's literally what homicide detectives said. I said, hey, you guys see this all the time What what do you do? He said it's not my fucking problem Yeah, and I said, well, that's fucking shitty and he goes that's not my problem either you know, they're you know homicide they're salty as fuck and They're doing so many jobs and Investigating so many crimes at a time that it's like it becomes robotic almost even if it's robotic for them though i'm curious if you would have some information on on like how they they look at it like even guys like that i think to myself all right they obviously are good

at compartmentalizing when they go to a scene, been there, done that. They know what to expect. But they're still a human being, right? Like they got to struggle with it. Well, I'll tell you. I can tell you from experience, no. Really? Yeah. So from the time I got out of the academy, seeing your first few homicides was shocking and then after that it becomes so routine almost like you're

eating your breakfast every day these homicides these suicides whatever they are are becoming so routine that we're literally eating a sandwich in the middle of it. You know, it's that robotic. And you don't see it as a human anymore. You see it as a job to solve the crime. And that's bad. But that's also why we have these issues with policing right now. So when all this stuff was coming up about you know um discrimination and um excessive force everyone was like oh my god i can't believe that's happening but me on

the other hand being on both sides my first thought was well of course it's happening. You put people in a position to where they're seeing the worst of the worst in the world, and you're expecting that not to affect them? Right. to where these traumatic events become normal, no wonder the divorce rate is insane with law enforcement. It's because it's impossible to separate it at some point. And you eventually get so mute to it that you no longer have feelings. It took me two to three years after i got out to separate myself from what i became it was hard very very difficult so you kind of you kind of just answered that how i thought you might but you didn't start it off how it would like line up to someone like me. So what I mean by that is I was asking, for example, like these homicide guys, how much does that affect them?

And you're saying, well, not at all because they get used to it. But what you're pointing to right now is that they train themselves. This is how I'm interpreting this. Correct me if I'm wrong. But like they, other police officers like you who had to be on these scenes, people who are exposed to this kind of thing in law enforcement, they're trained to compartmentalize it and get used to it and be able to eat a sandwich in the middle of the scene. being from a from a emotional understanding perspective that even if it doesn't even if for a lot of them it doesn't ever manifest as like they have a catatonic breakdown because they realize they relive everything and they're suddenly wholly affected by it not that that doesn't happen to some people i know it does but like even if that's not the case, they still – there's an internal tick that lives there that then affects everything else in their life and that has a negative net effect on their life.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Because you no longer have normal emotions and you can't just turn that on and off when you get home so when your spouse is expecting you to have a normal emotion towards something and to you in your head it's like i was just investigating a double homicide and you're berating me because i can't choose what i want for dinner like leave me the fuck alone so that's where it starts to become a conflict. And it's not surprising that I don't know what the percentage is off the top of my head, but there's maybe two cops out of everyone that I know that's never been divorced. And it's brutal. It's rough because it changes who you are it certainly did to me yeah i mean military as well as the other one that comes to mind because to your point when they're over there in combat it's the job it is you know and they're they got to protect the person next to them

and then maybe they got to see some crazy shit obviously there's some things i'm sure like in the moment you're like oh my god but at the end of the day it's like you're constantly in survival mode constantly so the way that a lot of them deal right with it in or not deal with it but the way that ends up manifesting for a lot of military and service members i've spoken with who have this it's like it's the hyper vigilance and not and that awareness of other people to the point where they trust nobody yes and so they get in their head and then maybe they'll relive some of the things that happen to them because they'll suddenly imagine that like oh the guy walking down the street could do what that guy over there did to my friend exactly and

that's how we're trained so you know from the first day in the academy you're taught everyone is out to kill you so when you're approaching every situation whether it be a shoplifting or a act of robbery you are constantly looking behind your back and you're constantly questioning whether you can believe what people are telling you. And that, unfortunately, goes home with you. So when your spouse or your kids are telling you a story, your first inclination is to say you're lying or not believe them. and i grew up that way because my father was also in law enforcement he was dea and he was brutal like you know the interrogation techniques on us um we could say yeah i just you know just got home from my soccer game bullshit you're lying it's like what the fuck you know what i'm saying like yeah but i grew up that way so when i was in the academy you know and on the street i didn't trust anything or anyone and it was constantly looking over my shoulder and that

is a hard habit to break how do you break it it took you know two to three years of not being in that environment a war zone environment and letting your guard down to where you can feel comfortable a little bit because you know they're they're constantly beating in your head that comfortable is the devil you're gonna you're gonna fucking get shot if you're comfortable and you think oh oh, I'm pulling over a Mercedes. Oh, it's probably just rich people. Assumptions are what kill us, right? I'm pulling over a Mercedes, no big deal. And you let your guard down.

That's when you die. It doesn't – my first inclination when you say they beat into your head in the academy like everyone's out to kill you my first inclination is like really like that's a awful thing to have is like the the set attitude for approaching a job but at the same time then you keep talking and i'm processing it and i'm like i mean what the hell else are you going to tell them? Because that's exactly what, like, you go into a Dunkin' Donuts and the wrong crazy person reaches for your gun because you're putting sugar in your coffee or something. It sounds crazy. The chances of it happening are low, but they're not zero. Oh, no.

And especially now. You know, I got out in 2005 and now it's even worse. Yeah. Especially now, you know, I got out in 2005 and now it's even worse. You know, we would get calls, fake 911 calls, just fake shit. And we would have to respond to it and there would be people waiting to shoot. So that's something that you always have to look out for. But, you know, the environment and the system has created the monsters that everyone's complaining about now. So is there a fix for it?

I don't think there is. Because if you train these officers in the opposite direction, you're going to have a lot of lives lost. Yeah. You're going to have a lot of lives lost. Yeah, and I think it's kind of tragic too, the calculations some police officers have to make now. And by that I mean – and I get this too, which is – again, I don't know how to solve it either. But you will have cops in certain situations who now just decide like, oh, I'm not dying or going to jail over this. Well, there's a saying when I was when I got out of the academy and I was first starting, my partner said I'd rather be. Tried by 12 and carried by six. I've heard that before. Yeah, he and that stuck with me. And then as time went on, I disagreed.

Because of what you're put through, everyone's a Monday morning quarterback. You're given seconds to make a decision. And I've had to make some decisions in seconds that could have cost me my life easily could have cost me and I always think of those and I think what would have happened if I did something different I would have lost my job lost my freedom potentially um any any ability to have a normal life and i look at that and i think i don't know i might be carried by six rather than tried by 12. especially and you said your partner was saying that what in like 2000 yeah yeah yeah years ago yeah the world is a different place it is and uh i disagreed then and i i disagree now um well now i i would never go into that field um it was right for me then

uh it's it definitely wouldn't be right for me now you're why do you say that? Well, I think you're highly scrutinized. Yes. And I'm not saying that, you know, that everything that's gone on is in law enforcement's favor. Not at all. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the ability to have all of these cameras everywhere has really highlighted the inadequacies of a lot of departments poor training yes um you know and i remember when i was going through the hiring process it took me two years to get hired and they test you on everything that you could possibly be tested on but is there really a way to test and see if a person's a racist and i've seen it we've all seen it um and it's one of those things that you're like you know it but what are you supposed to do about it um not hire them no but they can't

like they've already hired them because they've passed all their tests there's no test for are you a racist because if i ask you are you a racist and you're racist you're gonna go no hell no yeah hell no i'm not racist and then you know um come to find out you probably are but i think the the problem is is that you're depending on your community you're pulling people from that community and the south is notorious for having a lot of issues like that and um you know uh i've seen my fair share of stuff and it's it's not right but it's like when you're in a position to do something you you do but a lot of times you're not when you say you're not like meaning you're not someone who's in charge of hiring and firing

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thank you for checking out the show over there if you haven't already please be sure to leave a five-star review on either one of those platforms and i look forward to seeing you guys again for future episodes no i mean as simple as that or like if i see um If I see, I'll give you an example. Obviously not saying any names here, but I saw an officer put a female in the back of a paddy wagon van. Okay. And he was in there for a while. And the camera was turned off. So that's not something that you're supposed to do. And when I him come out of there he was zipping up his pants so it's like if i say something to him he's gonna deny it

but if she would have brought that up then i would have i would have said yeah i mean i saw it she never did that's a tough one yeah it's like it happens a lot and actually i don't even mean to say it like this but also i'll bet it's even harder for a guy cop in your position because you're like am i even like is that too personal to ask because yeah you you think you know what just happened you think so but like it was one of those things where i'm not going to ask because honestly i don't want to know but if she makes a claim i'm going to substantiate it of what i saw yeah yeah but it never it never came to fruition he turned off his camera yeah isn't that like illegal i wouldn't say illegal it's against policy yeah yeah so do you see what i'm saying like you're yes you know i'm

a 23 year old kid and i'm being put in these situations to where i'm like what the fuck this isn't right but what do i do like everybody else seems to be going with it. It is – it's very easy to say like, oh, there's a huge problem with cops covering for other cops. And on the surface, that is absolutely true for certain situations. We've seen some videos where that happens and it wouldn't come out unless there's a video for sure but then there's also the situations where it's not as obvious or not i shouldn't even say not as obvious it's like there's there's a crossing point between how serious is this all anything you're looking at that's questionable another cop does, it's serious.

But like, is it killed someone serious? Is it raped someone serious? Is it assaulted someone serious? And then there's also then the calculation of what's my job worth and how much am I going to do about it if I do point this out? That's a tougher spot to be.

There's some sort of, I don't know where it is, but there's some sort of crossing area where it gets gray area for me and it's less simple. Where I have a problem is when I see those extremely obvious ones where the worst thing's happening and it's not even just covering for it. It's like you're kind of actively participating in it.

Those are the ones, especially when it's on video because that's how a guy like me sees them. It's powerful You know We can all look at it and be like you look at some of the videos like Obviously like Chauvin or something like that. There were three other cops there They're just watching. Mm-hmm, you know now a part of me says two of them were being trained That sucks as a bad day to be trained. There's a part of me that goes

That's tough but still it's like when something's that crazy right in front of you and people in the public are watching it at what point do you do you say like all right this this isn't about the badge this is just this is a human issue yeah and it definitely uh was in that particular case But the one that comes to my mind is, and I can't remember what city it was in, but the female officer that thought she was pulling her taser and she pulled her gun and shot the guy. I can't remember. I know what one you're talking about. a fatal error but i for you know because of what i used to do i immediately put myself in her situation and i thought oh my god that could have happened to any of us you know you purpose kim potter that's it kim potter what what city was that in it was in minnesota oh another one in minnesota go figure yeah it doesn't help there um but you know I remember when they issued the

tasers they purposely wanted them on the opposite side of your gun so that you didn't make that mistake but you know after I watched that video I'm like she's in the heat of the moment she's trying to subdue this guy I just my heart broke for her and I think the judge did too after the judge was like you know you're sentenced to she got, but she was just like, there was no malintent. I'm so glad you bring that up. You know what one I was thinking about this with, which is going to sound funny to say, but I was thinking about this with Alec baldwin oh yeah the other day yeah now people because everyone expresses their opinion and stuff there's people out there who fucking hate alec baldwin or whatever fine okay but i was like take away who he is and think about the scenario someone comes into you

and says here's what just happened there's a movie set with 150 people on it right and in the middle of this whole movie set the star actor who was casted by the director they're having a good shoot there's no motive no one's ever uncovered anything like oh someone was fighting or whatever in front of everyone right a fake gun what's supposed to be they're technically real which is now part of the thing that's being talked about but like a gun that is supposed to have nothing in it have blanks in it right yeah somehow goes off accident carelessness something no one ever expected that least of which is the actor who probably has never handled a real gun in his actual life right i hope he did it arranged before some of these scenes he shot

but still either way point points no different it's like and then someone died two people were shot technically but the one woman helena hutchins took it like in the chest yeah and she died it's like forget who it is do you really think someone tried to commit murder in front of 150 people and happen to miss and shoot someone else that they liked and then hit the person somehow and in a way that didn't even they weren't even sure she was going to die you know what came to my mind first was i mean it's hard to find a movie without some type of gun or shooting right so this is like the one percent that this happened so the first thing that came to my mind is there there's no culpability in my opinion with alec baldwin

you need to look at the people that were in charge of handling that gun and why was there real bullets on there in the first place so i think that's what they're investigating right now is how did the bullets get there in the first place and why were they there? Yeah. Have you ever seen the police security – it's not security footage, but like they're required to take – The interviews? Yeah, yeah. Have you ever seen the one where the armorer, the girl who's the – I think that's what they call her, the armorer.

Yeah, armorer. I saw little snippets of it so she comes in she was like 24 right she was young young and like as a human being you're watching this and you realize like she's just fucked up yeah and and this it sucks to say because like what happens someone dies or the worst thing happens to someone people want accountability they want everything exactly but like human beings make mistakes yep and you have to ask yourself like i love that you use the word malintent part of putting someone in prison or accounting for actions is and it's not all of it but it's determining what's their level of danger to society out ball one is not a danger to

society because a gun went off right i'm sorry i just i'm never gonna buy that regardless of what you think i think it's i i think anyone else put yourself in that person's shoes come on yeah i mean when i saw her, the first thing came to my mind was, man, they were looking for the lowest budget armor. She's a very young, inexperienced person, probably making $ the potential for mistakes are going to be higher when you have an inexperienced person like that. Yeah. You get what you pay for. Of course.

That's what it, and that's the, that's the thing. Like, yeah, everyone should be sued. And by the way, to Baldwin's credit, like he was there for the family right away. He knew they were going to sue him. They did. He made no bones about it and paid them. Yeah. You know, because it's like, well, maybe there was something in there that I could have been more careful.

And I'll buy that all day. You know, that is what it is. But the studio should have to answer for that. Oh, 100%. Because the way that it was portrayed anyway was, hey, we checked the gun. Here's the blanks. They handed it to him. And he uses it

like and he's probably done this hundreds of times in his career so what would make him think this was any different from the last movie yeah so you know uh i think they're still investigating it though they are and that's why the civil part was settled that's why i bring it up because the the da i don't know how this works but the da of that county in new mexico yeah had to request funding in an official public board meeting or something and she has to give a reason so it's publicly available and she's saying you know we're expecting to have uh several indictments to come from this that are and i'm gonna mess up the language i don't want to say wrong but it's like in the related to the homicide clauses in the law which means of course they're obviously looking potentially at baldwin for one of those and that's the one we most know about but i'm like how

what what what was he supposed to do yeah well, if you have no intent and there's a death, it's manslaughter. So, which is a lesser degree, but yeah, I mean. Someone driving a car at 140 miles an hour in a 45 mile an hour zone who doesn't intend to kill someone but does, that's manslaughter. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But someone who's a fucking actor on a set being handed a gun like you said happened hundreds of times in his career didn't think twice about it i don't know if they're going to go after him

i think they're going to go after the armor yeah and like what because that was the person that was responsible for the gun the blanks the loading and the testing yeah he's just handed it uh if he does get charged i don't see anything going with it i don't either not at all even if a jury like didn't like him personally yeah like there's juries that can't put that aside but there's don't get me started on my thoughts on the jury i'm telling you you're here let's get you started i mean you know i've been in hundreds of courtrooms and uh over the years and you were an undercover cop too right yeah uh to testify yep uh they try to avoid that when you're undercover as much as possible um to not break my you know my identity but a lot of times you have to do that but even when i was

you know on the street you know i don't know why we are showing people are susceptible like we were talking with officers to being you know misogynist or racist or, you know, whatever it might be. So why not take that human flaw away from our justice system and make it truly blind? Why are we identifying who's on trial? Why are we saying the gender, the race, that person, in my opinion, should be behind a sheet. They should be able to be present and hear everything. But we should never, as a juror, we should never know the gender, the race, nothing about the religion. It shouldn't matter. And that is how you get rid of discrimination in the justice system. You know, I've never heard someone propose that before. Well, yeah. I've talked about it before because I've been exposed to it for so long and I've seen the discrimination. No question, I've seen it. And that is the only way, in my opinion, to avoid it. I have to think about that a lot more. When you first say that, I know I'm going to spend time thinking about that after this. When you first say that, that sounds pretty good.

I see no flaws with that idea because why would you need to see the person? Why do you need to know their gender? And then you just refer to them as implicated, the person implicated or, you know, the person on trial. Gender might be the one that's tough because I'm thinking about the worst crimes right now to start with. Like with murder, if a husband killed a wife. But see what you already did? You already assumed it was the male that was committing the crime. Oh, okay. Okay.

All right. You see? So you could say spouse spouse spouse interesting because think about maybe it's a um a homosexual relationship and you don't assume and that's the whole point you need to keep that out of the justice system because I'm telling you I've been a part of it for years justice is not blind no no it's not not at all and you know and not one more thing to add to that is it needs to be systematic across the board so in other words if I get five DUIs as a white woman, the black male should get the same sentence as me if he gets five DUIs. But that is not the case.

And it's been proven over and over again that minorities get harsher sentences. And it's bullshit. Malcolm Gladwell. You ever hear of him? I love Malcolm Gladwell. Okay. So you. I read some of his stuff.

So did you read. I always forget which book this was. I want to say it was Talking to Strangers, though. I love that book, yeah. And you know, I identified with that book because it's Kansas City. And I was a cop in Kansas City. So he starts the book out talking about police officers in Kansas City and how they did an experiment on... What was that again? Can you explain that? Yeah, I'm going by memory here, but they did an experiment, a study, a social study, essentially, on how people, officers from different backgrounds, treat others from different backgrounds.

And we have more in common than we do differences believe it or not but it's the human component that automatically looks at the differences right whether it's rich or poor white or black uh gay or straight i mean it's anything people will automatically look to how are we different when it should actually be how are we the same it should be yeah but i i understand what and and to actually tie in something you said earlier too especially as a cop if you're trained in the academy like you said anything you know you everyone's out to kill you well now you go into full survival mode. And in survival mode, you are looking for the red coat among the gray. Like Andy Bustamante said in here with the whole – he used a visual from Schindler's List, which some people misunderstood.

They were thinking he was like talking about the plot of the movie. He was saying, no, that visual where you have everything's gray except the little girl in the red coat. Yeah. You want to – he was talking about it from a spying perspective where they're trying to spot the difference he's like you want to be able to sift out all the gray and find the red coat so when somebody to use your example is coming into a life-threatening situation they're looking for the red coats they're not looking for the gray that's just like they're gray in this case. That's a really good point. But it's tough because like you were also saying, split second decisions with things. What are the motivations behind those decisions? You kind of don't even're asked to make life altering decisions in seconds and then you are judged by the world in some cases for those decisions and um that's difficult when you're asking a 22 23 year old kid um maybe the decision wasn't right and it

cost that person's life or maybe it cost someone else's life but it's it's um i think it's unfair you know we we we do we even do it in sports i can't believe he didn't throw that ball or whatever and it's like you guys like he had you know but we're talking about a game versus someone's life yes and in both cases though you can also slow it down when you're looking at it afterwards right and you can say well you know what one of my favorite lines people have for stuff and i'm sure once in a while i to be hypocritical and do this myself. But I try to check it. It's like if I were blank, then I would blank. You don't know. You don't.

There's nothing that you can 100% know until you're in it what you would do. But I would challenge everyone to spend time in someone else's shoes that's completely different from you and I have done that many times and it's opened my eyes to things that I would have never experienced had I not done it can you give an example of that so being being in a homeless shelter. So being there, you know, coming from regular middle-class suburbia, I never had experience with homeless people. Or, you know, but we're taught, whether it's through the media or through our families,

that, oh, homeless people, they're just lazy and drug users. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth. And what I found is a lot of them suffer from mental illness. And this country does a really terrible job of taking care of people with mental illness. So their only survival mechanism is to go on the streets and not conform with regular society because they don't conform. So they're either panhandling or they're homeless by choice, because they just, they can't conform to those restrictions that our society has put on people so it really kind of opened my eyes to um you know

battered women uh when they have kids very young their chances for poverty are so much higher than say me that didn't have a child young yes um and that's unfair for for them to be hampered with that. So they're already starting out 200 yards behind everyone else. So their chances of winning the race are already negative. I wish more people could do that. And to add to it, I wish more people who had a serious law enforcement background would do that. I'm sure plenty do. I think it should be a requirement yeah it and and if we're going to talk requirement let's put a stamp on it and say what it is some form of psychological feedback counseling in that way to be able to say all right let's not just debrief from a technical standpoint

what went down in x situation or who was involved let's also debrief from like an empathetic standpoint like okay even if you're talking about the worst person why was this person this way what what what led to it in their life i i do think about that a lot you know with the worst people even and i'm like well they were a baby once you know and it's not like you can condone stuff or like write stuff i'm not saying that at all i'm see you know we have a society you really fuck up like that's what it is right you get what's coming to you but like how can we learn from that to try to you know for whatever the rest of this person's life is try to redeem them but also even more

importantly try to avoid people like that getting to that point in the future well i think we're all a product of our upbringing yes so we live we we we live and act kind of how we were shaped when we were younger. So I always said, you know, if somebody said, Laura, can you, what is your idea to test if a person is biased or racist or misogynist in any way. But what I would implement, if it were me, would be these officers, as a part of their training, have to spend one month living in a situation that's culturally opposite of theirs. I like that. Because they need to understand other cultures and the diversity of the population because that's who you're supposed to be serving. And that will give you that empathy that maybe a lot of them lack, right?

Because if you came from a farm in Iowa and you're like, I want to be a police officer. I'm going to go to Detroit because that's who hired me. You are going to not fit in there because there is no commonality with Detroit and a farm in Iowa. And in order for you to understand that population and the diversity of that population you need to empathize with them so you should be emerged in it completely agree and and a part of the problem that's like tied in in a similar vein because what you're talking about here is a form of training yes and i'm all for that and i am all for my tax dollars going right to that because one of the things I do feel bad about in some of these videos we've seen, some of them like a show of in, that's a totally different story. georgia in a parking lot it was shortly after chauvin where the two cops were called to a guy

who was drunk at the wheel and they tested him they i believe that's what it was they knew he was gonna have to be arrested and they went to take him into custody and everything was going professionally they were even being very nice like hey listen, listen, we're going to have to take you in or whatever. He was like, oh, no, man, come on. And then all of a sudden he gets physical with them. And they didn't know what to do on the ground. They did not have jujitsu training, martial arts of any form. And this guy, he was better.

And so they get to the ground and they were doing everything they could. And you can hear it on the mics. You can see it on the video trying to restrain him. They couldn't. He goes to get away. Then they have to pull a gun. And now they have the whole like, oh, my. And I actually got to find out what happened with that case. But it's like, oh, did they? They're saying like, oh, did they murder him or whatever? And I'm like, no, they were trying to do everything correctly, but they're un-fucking-trained. Right, but look at it in a different way. If he's trying to get away, you don't have to shoot him because you have, there's no reason. He's not an imminent threat to you. So if I'm getting beat on the ground and he gets up and runs away, I'm not shooting him. If he comes after me to kill me i'm shooting him there's a very big difference so your life must be in danger or someone else's for you to take a life and anyone running away is not threatening you or someone else that's an important fuck yeah and there's just no reason for that if if i had

i think for that case in particularly that's a really solid point that i that i would need to think about the place my mind went to watching that one is you just went to calmly arrest a guy who then was willing to physically resist a cop hardcore and was in a not sober state they knew that and then went to run from the cops there could be a question and i'm saying in like a reasonable doubt perspective i'm not saying that it was the right call to immediately go to that i do think everything happened fast and that's where i have some empathy here but it's like there could be the question of like oh is that person going to potentially go harm someone else now because it's not imminent though that's where the letter of the law comes in so if he's running away, he could kill somebody down the road, but it's not imminent. You can only fire if it's imminent threat to you or someone else.

Interesting. Okay. So I don't know if you remember, I think this was one of the cases that sparked everything. Remember in South Carolina? Yes. south carolina yes white officer yep um pulso i don't even know if this man it was a black male but i don't think he was in a car i think he was just on foot or something it was like behind a fence you see yeah yeah yeah the guy just starts running away and he fires and shoots him in the back and it's like yeah that one was bad there is no way that that is any semblance of correct that one completely agree i mean it's total bullshit and anytime you find a victim with bullets in the back you need to start looking real close because there's no reason because if you're running away from me how am i how are you a threat to me? That's fair. I think my only continued holdout on some of them, not the one you just brought up.

I remember that one vividly. I was just fucked up. But it's like if they do go hurt somebody, that law department's done. Well, hold on. Let me throw in a wrench in there. We've had this happen too. Really? So in around 2000, I started in 1998,

around 2000, the chief of police at that time comes out on the media in Kansas City and says, we will no longer participate in car chases unless it's a violent felony. So here's what happened. Everybody that was ridiculously drunk, we tried to pull them over. They basically said, fuck you. And they kept speeding off. We couldn't chase them. They hit somebody else and killed them. We were not at fault. We were not at fault because that was the policy of we will not chase wow now say we did chase and they hit somebody and killed them it's now

the department's fault you see the catch-22 so they were riddled with lawsuits and they said it unless it's a robbery a homicide or there's a kidnapped person in there we cannot chase them and it was devastating because we would literally see people that we knew were dangerous but we couldn't do anything about it and now you're you are you're bringing up exactly from the same exact angle what I was. And it's just – That's why I brought it up. Because people can listen to the last six, seven minutes of us talking.

They flipped us off. They knew we couldn't chase them. Right, right, right. So then the public knows. But I'm saying like people listening to this right now can now listen to where this little silo started six, seven minutes ago, whatever it was. And they can hear where you started with this and where you ended, which is consistent. can now listen to where this little silo started six seven minutes ago whatever it was yep and they can hear where you started with this and where you ended which is consistent and they can also hear where i started with it because i thought you were getting at something else right and i thought

what the bottom line is what you brought it back to is unfortunately and i say that unfortunately what everything does come back to in America not just in law enforcement in everything and it's what is the legal liability here exactly which is really sad it is because the in a perfect utopian world the question should be what's the most correct decision with the information I have right but that's not unfortunately and you can understand this from managing a huge business just like your chief can here. When you're the sheriff, you're not there. You are managing all different types of people.

And so what do you have to do? You have to put in the most uniform things you can that match the averages to the best of your ability. And that's what he did there and I get that. It was a risk assessment definitely it was how many lawsuits have as the department been in and how many of them were as a result of a car chase and it was a risk assessment now did I agree with it no I didn't because I thought not apprehending those people put the public more at risk than the potential for fatalities in apprehending them. Now, I didn't have the data he had, and I could be totally wrong. But that was kind of the sentiment

back then of, well, what are we here for? At that point, I remember being so frustrated that I almost wanted to quit when I had a rape suspect that would not stop. He fled. And I was told I cannot pursue him. Isn't that a violent crime? Didn't you say? It already happened. So they wouldn't let me chase him. And they thought I was like, we're going to lose him.

And they're like, no, we know who he is. We know who he is. We can get him later. It's not worth you potentially killing someone or him killing someone fleeing from you. I was in fury. It was like almost like a serial rapist. And I was I was furious. I was furious at it and uh i can't remember whether that you know they eventually caught him or not but i remember thinking what am i doing yeah and that's when i i decided to go undercover at that point now you actually right before we get to the undercover stuff though because i have so many questions yeah i don't want to leave out the one thing i wanted to throw by you a little bit ago before we got into this with malcolm gladwell because you were talking about the the inability to have blindness in the system yes but in that book and since you read it you probably remember this too but he covered an experiment that was done in one of the courts in new york city I don't know if it was the Southern District. It was one, you know, they're all big there. But what the experiment was,

was they went into all the bail hearings that judges would have. And I thought he did a beautiful job. I haven't read it in a while, but I thought he did a beautiful job explaining this to reserve some judgment and talk about how there are some biases who are built in people that some right but he was saying like what this ended up revealing

is that yeah there's definitely got to be some judges that are racist oh yeah and then there's others where it's like they get used to how a system works and they just you know you're in a million cases and they just kind of repeat things over and over again just like the homicide detective it becomes repetitive yes so what happened here was they would measure defendant being white guy right black guy i think latino guy and if i get this a little off just think of it this way it was minorities versus non-minorities right right right and so what they found is that for the same crimes on average the bail would be higher absolutely for the minorities and so what he was saying is he's like well how do you fix that do you make it an ai no you fix it by not showing the person exactly that did the crime that's why i heard your idea and it

hit in my head if the jurors have the biases you know the judges do and that's why there's a disparity in sentencing so why do we have so many black men incarcerated for marijuana that's the biggest bullshit ever it's nuts it's it's just ridiculous. But yet, you know, you've got white-collar crime that it's basically they're sitting in a country club. Yeah. Very often. Yeah. Yeah. And look, the who you know and who you know to represent you are two very real things in the legal system.

You know, I care a lot about like the work the Innocence Project does. Yes. And the saddest part about many of the, not all of them, but many of those cases is the fact that the legal representation they had was horrible. It's not fair. It's not fair at all. You get a public defender and there's many, many books about the type of people that want to be public defenders. Is it a stepping stone to get to something else or is it i pretty much suck as a lawyer and this is all i can get yeah you know it they're not getting adequate representation and the public defenders are given 50 60 cases at a time they literally get it 10 minutes before

they're supposed to see anything and the best they can do is ask for continuance or a plea bargain. And it's like a plea bargain. They're convincing this person to take the plea bargain, one, because it gets another case off their load. Number two, man, if I try it, we're probably going to lose and you're going to get more time. Yeah. So an innocent person is potentially taking a plea bargain when they should never have done that in the first place and think about how complex a courtroom is and all the different things that go into any case and the average person doesn't understand no clue how things work no clue but it's just you've got to remove the human component from trying these people and sentencing these people and that is

the only way that you're going to get equity what what do you mean by that don't show their race oh back to exactly yeah and i'm not saying just not only for juries but for judges as well yeah it should be behind closed doors that person they should be able to obviously see their you know the evidence to for and against them and whatnot but you can't tell me that you're going to pick 12 people and not one is going to have biases we're human these people are growing up in a very isolated population they know no different and they think people that don't look like them might be bad or scary and they may the worst part this is the worst part about it many of them actually don't even know it or realize they don't either they don't you know

the ones who come by it honestly it's like all right that person sucks yep but there are a lot of people who don't actively understand that. It is biologically wired into them because the only thing you can know is your environment. Exactly. If you grow up looking at people who are exactly like you from a socioeconomic standpoint,

where you live, what the houses look like, whatever, and then down to race, all of it. Right. That's what you know. Exactly. If you didn't, then maybe you do understand but how many like the jury selection process is like who's ending up on these things yeah this is my other question i've never been chosen so i have no idea and

then i hear people that have been chosen multiple times so yeah that's how random is it you know how random is it and it should be more equitable from all different populations like you know you should never see 12 white people on a jury it needs to be more equal does that still do you ever see oh absolutely i see it all the time i'm almost shocked at that in 2020. when i ask lawyers about that their response is well whites are the majority of the population and i'm like 66 or 60 depending on the community though exactly go to all iowa farm and you'll never get a minority on a jury yeah that's true god it the world. There's so many little issues. And they all add up to big issues. average me can come up with ideas like that there's people far smarter than me that probably have way better ideas at making this more equitable and i can only assume that they don't want to

or they're stopped from doing it perhaps that's the other thing because somebody doesn't want them to exactly and a lot of it comes back to just bullshit instead of actually like how do i want to say this like a lot of the reason things don't happen is because the people who may run certain things are like no this is just how we do it here there's just no consideration of like what this and and that's the problem we talked about empathy with this stuff there's none of that it's like no no this is the system that's great don't worry about it yeah and that you know i i try not to be an over idealist but yeah i i want to see things better so my mind doesn't work like that my mind's like well if we have a potentially better way let's explore that avenue right if it's not then we won't do it but if we have data to say, hey, this could be better, let's fucking do it. Right. But this this kind of exposure idea that I have my in my mind, if I've got somebody, you know, from farm town, Iowa, I'm going to put would disenfranchise some people that are not doing law enforcement for the right reasons.

Fair. That's really – and that's – I hadn't even thought about it like that. But you have some good ideas. Thank you. I've had a lot of time to think about it. I would like to implement some of these. Yeah. I mean, you know, I've been in a lot of different environments.

Yes. I think you'll find my opinions about drugs and other things to be, you know, counterintuitive to what an undercover law enforcement person would probably say if they were sitting in this and it's, you know, most likely because I've I've really immersed myself in all of these environments. And it wasn't, you know, when you're in uniform, it's us against them. And it's that mentality. And it's, you know, we're almost taught that it's a game. How many people can you arrest? How many people can you get off the streets uh you know it's a game that we have rules they have rules um and it's who can win at the end of the day but when you're undercover you're immersed in that you are equal to everyone else around you and you get the rare opportunity to learn what it's like to be addicted to meth, for example, or act like I am,

to be a homeless prostitute, or act like I am. You know, these type of things are very, very unique. You know, not something I would recommend for everybody to do, but just pick a different population from you and immerse yourself in it and learn it. And I guarantee you it will change your life and it will also be the best thing you've ever done. It's funny. You're not the first person who's brought up like the us versus them mentality in here. And it's not just like in law enforcement or anything, but that's just, I think, the highest example because it's very interesting to me how, like, the older I get, the more I realize nobody ever really truly grows up. The game doesn't really change.

The stakes just get way higher. And, like, for example, you're a kid. You're playing games, and it's cops and rob robbers and you put someone in jail on the playground. You're an adult in a powerful situation. I'm talking at the highest levels right now. You're in white collar or something and people are trying to get you or even violence. You're in the mafia or something. People are trying to get you.

In a way, some of the people trying to get you once you get high enough it's the same hypocrisy one just has a badge and the other doesn't you know it's a very weird thing because it you know these are entities we think about we think about department of justice we think about mafia or something like that but it's just an idea and there's just people who are flawed in different ways for sure behind them and that can get out of control in the wrong directions even on the side of the law So with con 100% if that's your mentality too, and if that's what's really beat into it That's where you can run into problems because it's like no no what we do the danger is it's like well What we do is good no matter what versus well

We shouldn't do some things as well. Even if we think we're doing it in the name of something, right? Yeah, and it's almost like you get to the point where you're justifying things that skirt the line. Yes. That are in that gray area, but you're justifying it by saying, well, as law enforcement, our parameters are tighter than theirs. You know, and it's more of a us versus them. It keeps going. And then you start to justify more and more. And once you once you cross that gray line, I don't think You dip your toe in it and maybe you do something that's questionable, but you justify it in your head. And then you do it again and you do it again. And then it becomes repetitive and then it eventually explodes. Like, you know, the Derek Chauvin guy. When I watched that video, the first thing that came to my mind was how calm he was. He's done this a hundred times. I he has i can i can just tell they prove that yeah oh okay i didn't know that so not necessarily that same exact tactic yeah they look when you go through his record everything

it's like it was there right you know and then i think if I would have put myself on that person's back, he would probably be alive because I'm not as large as that officer was. But then now you see all these departments all over the place saying, hey, stop using that tactic. Hey, hey, hey. And then, you know, I remember when I was going through the academy, there was like only five or six tactics that you could use. And when none of them worked, it's like, oh, just tase them. You know, that time. It's like, man, you got to do better. You've got to train better.

You've got to do better. And I remember we virtually had no training on handling mentally ill people. Yeah. remember we virtually had no training on handling mentally ill people yeah that's a i've heard a lot of different arguments in that department and i'm kind of open to anything as far as like ideas there because i do think sometimes with very small crimes especially cops get put in a really bad spot and then you know they don't know how to handle it yeah and i think um it can escalate very quickly and uh there's just not enough de-escalation tactics being being taught um and again you know a lot of i me personally you know i haven't been around mentally ill people so when i was first

introduced to these people i had no idea how to talk to them how to handle them um how to de-escalate a situation like they're they're tricky they really are because it can go like that yeah and uh again you, I think I was just fortunate. I could have been in any one of those situations where I was, you know, killed off of just not knowing how to handle a schizophrenic person. And again, if you haven't seen it, I mean, how are you supposed to? Yeah, I was never exposed to it. it i was again this is why departments need to immerse immerse these these these new officers into different you know populations yeah it's such a good idea but you i mean we've said it a few times today we just haven't like going into full detail about it you you got into undercover it

sounds like almost right away when you went on the very young yeah i was did you want to do that i did um excuse me so basically i looked at undercover almost like the holy grail of achievements i wanted to test myself to see if i could do it and um i was only in the department for 18 months when i applied to go uh undercover and it was um i was street narcotics and i was also moonlighting advice for prostitution when you say moonlighting just for people out there we would do certain stings so you're not undercover every day like you are with narcotics narcotics you're undercover the entire time with vice it was particular stings craigslist stings

um street street prostitution stings just Just various little things that they do periodically to try to curtail, 24 years old, very naive, never had I done a drug before. I had never seen a drug other than marijuana before. So it was until, you know, I got into law enforcement the first 18 months. And then I'm like, okay, that's what a crack arc looks like. And, you know, that's what Coke looks like and meth and all this stuff. But this was all new to me. That's not something they teach you in the academy. This is what Coke looks like, you know. You could have literally put baking soda in front of me and told me it was Coke.

And I would have been like, okay. I had no fucking clue, right? And now I can spot it from a fucking mile away. But at that time, it's like, whoa, you know, I had no training. So when you get into street narcotics, my training was, hey, here's your new partner. Here's, you know, 300 bucks. Bye. You get the 300 bucks, you're supposed to come back with $300 of dope.

Every day, you get money supposed to come back with 300 a dope every day you get money you come back with dope so i mean how much training was there that was it that was it that was it i'm even surprised i was expecting you to say there wasn't enough but that uh there was none holy shit so my first day this guy's like i'm the only female too right yeah and everybody else in the unit is a white male and i'm like oh fuck this isn't gonna go very well like how the fuck are these guys buying anything so he basically is like listen you can wear a wire but if you get caught you're probably going to get killed then he said you can carry a gun but if they find it they're gonna know you're a cop because it's a glock and not a piece of shit off the street so he goes give you a piece of shit no he goes make your choice so i was like fuck it i had no gun and no wire the entire time wow that i was there so then he says you're gonna have to

come up with a persona i'm like what do you mean he's like like an actor you're gonna have to come up with a fucking persona i was like okay i love how they're just like telling you that that's it yeah and i was like get to it uh okay and he's like think about it and figure it out he's like you have to dress a certain way talk a certain way and act a certain way and i'm like come up with this what way is that like i'm still trying to figure it out yeah so we're riding around and i'm not saying anything you know i'm just riding with him and we pick up a CI, an informant. Confidential informant. Right. And he introduces me to a CI. And she was cool. Cool as hell.

Older, I was 24 at the time. She was probably 40. Black woman. Never been in trouble. Just wanted to get drugs off the street. So she was a CI because she lived in that rough area best kind of c she was awesome yeah unfortunately she was murdered oh no i think they found out that she was our ci eventually but um she she was killed after i had already left so i really liked

her and i never knew her real name and she never knew mine like you know we all we all had fake licenses we all had fake everything we never knew each other's identity but she would get us in to where we needed to be and it took me probably a good four or five months to figure out what persona I wanted to take on because I had to get like a lay of the land and i needed to see like who what what is the typical household i'm going to the street stuff like obviously i can't be black you know i can't do that so i need to figure out something that would allow me to blend and so i kind of stole a little bit off of my prostitution stuff and oh so you had done that first yeah yeah i was doing it yeah i did that first and then i did it kind of a little bit inside too while i was doing both and then i yeah i did that's hard too like oh you're not

just brutal you don't know how to be a hooker like it was actually that's way easier than narcotics. I would believe that. All you got to do is stand there and look like a homeless person and people will pay you money for sex. You still have to at least slightly look the part depending on where you're doing it. And that's where I kind of got the idea. So when I was a prostitute, I would not shower for that day. And I would take this stuff that's called blackout and it and it comes in a bottle that looks like nail polish and it blacks out your teeth it paints them black

so I have perfect teeth from having braces so I was like well that's a fucking tall tale sign what hooker on the street has perfect teeth so I would black out teeth to make it look like I didn't have certain teeth. Oh, wow. And it worked. You can't tell? No. Ever feel like your WordPress site is moving in slow motion? Switch to Kinsta's managed hosting for WordPress and watch it fly.

Host your site on Google Cloud's fastest servers with worldwide data centers so your pages load instantly. Need help? WordPress experts respond in under two minutes and will migrate so your pages load instantly. Need help? WordPress experts respond in under two minutes and will migrate to your site for free. Try it yourself. First month free at Kinsta.com. That's K-I-N-S-T-A dot com. Kinsta. Simply better hosting. Oh, you can't tell. And it either looks like that or it looks like you have meth mouth. Oh, you can't tell. And it either looks like that or it looks like you have meth mouth. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah.

So then I took coconut oil and I rubbed it in my hair to make it look greasy as fuck. Right? So then I took my clothes and I was very, very fit at the time. Like I was doing triathlons and stuff and I was like, there's no fucking way. I can't wear anything that shows parts of my body so i was wearing clothes that were two or three sizes too big which you would think is counterintuitive like most people think oh prostitutes they're wearing next to nothing no not street prostitutes those are more high class prostitutes yeah so my clothes were you know two sizes too big, and I got them from Goodwill, and I made them disgusting. So I did that. And you figured all this out yourself. Well, trial and error, right? I'm trying to figure it out because, you know, most people think, oh, prostitutes are supposed to look like, you know, these really sexy lingerie things, and it's way opposite of that yes so um that worked for me so i thought okay i need to step it up a little bit with with narcotics undercover because it's not a quick

interaction for prostitution it was a car would pull up, we would make an arrangement, and that was it. And you pull out the badge and say, police. No, I never did that. They come and the police come. Yes. So all you have to do is make an agreement for a sexual act for anything of value. So it doesn't even have to be money. You could say, hey, I'm going to give you this coffee cup for a blowjob.

That's it. You're going to jail for that. So the interactions and narcotics were way longer. You know, you're so what i did is i started to speak like them and it worked that's not easy to do though when you grow up with it it is yeah so i know how they talk i know how they think um you know there's no math skills there's no ability to write so i was mentally challenged and they all bought it i never got made for a cop because they looked at me like this homeless mentally challenged person that was just a drug addict on the you know going house to house and you're really underselling i i understand it like okay you grew up around it so you you have a good feel that is hard it was it was at times and i i never heard that before yeah i had to get creative i mean i'm a female and i'm white so i had to get creative and all of a sudden i was buying dope like nobody's business and these white guys were like what the fuck and i dope like nobody's business. And these white guys were like, what the fuck?

And I'm like, that's the thing is the guys thought all I have to do is grow my hair out and grow my face out and I'm good to go. Well, fuck, that's not that. There's more to it than that. You've got to live it. And that's what I did is I lived it. But it started to fuck with me, too. How so? It's hard to turn it on and off.

Well, that was going to be my next question. When you're doing this, maybe this would help clear it up. Are you doing it during the day or during a night, almost like a shift? Or could it be like you're literally living in a crack house for a week at a time? No, no. So it's a shift.

It's like a 10 12 hour shift and you're going into crack houses and you're standing in line waiting to buy and you're um you know i i i watched other women that were drug addicts and their ticks and things so i could mimic the ticks just like this and they never never bought it i mean i never got caught at all wow yeah i was you know and my male counterparts had guns pulled on them um the dealers would force them to smoke crack to prove they weren't a cop you never had to have that nope i never did they bought it they bought it so and i you know i was lucky because it wasn't like hey i'm just going to be a mentally challenged person it was i have these two people in my family

i know how they speak i know their mannerisms and i know how they act and i would just do that and then i added a drug addict component to it, like, you know, the ticks and the things like that and black a little bit without, and I say that lightly, like we can't know, but we can imagine like that it's like the idea that you can stay straight and stay in character when that happens that's that's where it gets to a whole nother like yeah impressive level so at the onset the the biggest challenge i had was being in character but then after i got so used to it my biggest challenge was being normal oh so you didn't really know how used to it my biggest challenge was being normal oh so you didn't really know how to turn it off no it was difficult it was very difficult i was constantly you know looking over my shoulders i was afraid to be recognized because as a woman you can only alter your appearance so much to not be permanent you know i wasn't going to dye my hair because then what am i going to do in my personal life right like you can't guys can grow their beards out and you know look dirty and

homeless and stuff it was my appearance was more difficult for me um so i had to create that mentally challenged drug addict and then when they spoke to me yeah you know yeah yeah you you know just you had to really live it and um did you forget to turn off that part of it sometimes no i didn't forget but it's it's challenging to to do you know eight to ten to twelve hours and then to turn it off and then turn it on turn it off it starts to fuck with your head a little bit and it was weird because most of the drug dealers at one point i felt that they had sympathy for me like they they wouldn't hurt me i i was more worried about a sexual assault than i was about being killed because of that's common with the drug trade is instead of money, you're trading sex for the drugs.

So that was my biggest concern. So I felt like the more that they pitied me, the more they would leave me alone and that actually worked i i think it also plays to your advantage playing not being all mentally there oh yeah as well yeah not to say there aren't some sick fuckers oh yeah there are we know that there are it lessens your chances you know that was just like that's a ballsy thing to do i i've never heard i'm sure somewhere sometimes someone's done that i don't know in law enforcement but I have never heard a story like that before oh well that's good I guess yeah but you know I just grabbed it out of my own experiences because I I was really like I said it took me four maybe

five months to figure out what the fuck am I gonna do you know I are you doing anything during that time like I'm training yeah but like i'm riding along with these jackasses that are supposed to be you know teaching me the ropes but they're just like stay in the car stay in the right you know not going okay no so i use that time to just observe got it you know what what are the other women dress like what do they look like and uh it's it's not easy to act like an addict that's the hard part the mentally challenged part was easier for me because i'd been around it so much but the drug addict part the ticks um the way their eyes look when they're under the influence um well that's another thing you can't fake pupil dilation so thank god most

drug dealers are morons and they're not looking for that so you just do the the ticks and stuff and along with the language and the dress and it just kind of worked i i'm fortunate i got lucky i could have you know anybody that could see through it would have easily made me. And that's what you're talking about when you're talking about turning on, turning off repeatedly when you turn on, quote unquote, life and death situation every single time you step out there. It fucks with your head. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like you can't have an off day. You can't be like, I'm not feeling that great today. All right. Well, if we don't get through it, no problem. It's like, well, I might be dead. Yeah. It's heavy. There's no off day. Yeah. Now, when you were you were doing that though was that completely full time or were you still doing other police work no narcotics was full time how many years did

you do this for oh boy um i think it was two that's a while you're not kidding you know what it felt like 32 i'll bet it felt like 32 um and the most fucked up thing was is that i actually took a pay cut to do it and which is counterintuitive because you think well the hazard pay so we got hazard pay but they took the shift differential from us even though you're because you you get shift differential for working nights and midnights and stuff and i'm like wait i'm still working nights they're like yeah but you start during the day and i'm like what the fuck i'm like okay so you know it got it got to the point where i had like a come to jesus moment with myself and i'm like this is where kind of my mentality on i was naive enough when i got into it thinking i'm gonna make a difference stupid girl stupid stupid girl you're not gonna

make a difference what you're what you are is maybe making another casualty in the drug trade So when I got to know these people and infiltrate the lifestyle, I started to have empathy for them. You took my next question, so let's go right to that. to ask but to be even a little more specific though is even some of the people that that you would characterize as like kind of the worst in that end of it being around them every day of course seeing a lot of bad that they do constantly but like you're learning intuitively or maybe sometimes personally based on having conversations with people exactly kind of where people are coming from or how they got into this and stuff like that is there a part of you going damn like if other things had happened in this person's life they wouldn't be this person actually i turned it if i was in this person's shoes i would also be selling drugs right because when you take opportunity and education away from someone, they're going to figure out how to survive. And this is a supply and demand issue.

He is, you know, probably no different of an entrepreneur than I am. He saw the demand. He figured out where the supply was. And he's selling it and it's a hierarchy very similar to probably what he sees society as so he sees as in in society as he is the bottom of the pool because he's poor he's black and he has no education uh but when in the drug dealing world he's in the he's in the top of the hierarchy he's the dealer not the user so they typically look down dealers never use their own shit yeah all the good ones yeah the good ones don't use their own shit interesting word but right

you know what yeah because they know that once you start using, you're off your game. And then you just become another crackhead. They pick the, if I'm understanding what you're saying, and I would agree with it if this is right, but they pick the playing field that they're able to work the class structure on, like where they can work and be at the top end of the world. And since they view that as really the only option they're like well that's the one we're going to play in and that's where we can be top dog right and you know humans will figure out how to survive and so when i started to have empathy for them that was my entire thought process was well wait a minute if If I wasn't educated, if I didn't have the opportunities that I have now,

and I wasn't white, I would fucking be selling drugs too. Yeah. To survive, to feed my family and myself or whatever they're doing. And it's, it's violent and it has, you know, not a long longevity for, for that type of business business but it's a chance that they take because they see no other option right yeah my buddy josh who was actually on this podcast earlier on episode 54 he's one of my closest friends from college just awesome dude who i've learned a lot from in my life but he he was a rare guy in a lot of different ways he is from the projects in the bronx yeah but what he was gifted with is he had both of his parents together and they were incredible parents his mom is literally like the teacher at the

school right there and so he he had in that way he had a very solid environment which he doesn't discount at all but he was also like special like he was intelligent and so he happened to get into one of those programs because of just being able to do some things that other people couldn't that then matriculated him on a different pathway starting especially at like i want to say it was like age 11 started to split and that led to all kinds of opportunities that he to his credit knocked all of them out of the park and he deserves all the credit in the world for that but he told me a story one time and i've told it before on this podcast at least once but it's it it affected me a lot in how i think about where the fork in the road happens for when it comes to like environment and what people do but he was telling me about one

of his close friends when they were kids growing up in the same neighborhood and he was not on the track that Josh was. And so at some point when Josh got to high school, this program then let him go into a high school program where during the week he went to school in suburbia and lived out there and then would come home I think on the weekends but i think it was like when he first went out there like the first six months you had to be out there like the whole time like not even home on the weekends so what i believe it was if i'm remembering correctly i always remember this part a little differently but the story remains the same he comes home for the first time in a while whatever it was and when he gets onto a street after getting off the subway he sees his buddy and his buddy's on the corner and they're both like 14 15 years old they're young and i give his friend so much credit in the story but it's also very sad his friend sees him and his expression immediately changes to a combination of happy to see you, but what the fuck are you doing here?

And he walks up to Josh and he goes, hey, what's up, brother? How you doing? Like, what's going on? You doing well out there? Good. Like, you're representing all of us. Keep doing your thing. Right.

And he takes him and walks him across the street and says, now don't ever walk on that side of the street again and keep doing what you're doing. Don't come back. And like they went their separate ways and they looked at each other and there was an understanding right and i'm like that's a perfect example one person has an opportunity that the other one didn't have exactly and i i give his friend oh 100 a ton of yes and so does he because he could have tried to suck them in yeah or you know whatever there's a multitude of things it's a powerful story for me and i think it can be for a lot that's why i like telling it because it's for a lot of people but that environment environment environment i

hit on it over and over again and it's like the smallest little things can change it so the fact that you could see that oh yeah see an awful shit too like you know they're they're drugging people up i mean this is a bad it is it's bad you know it's bad and you know it's i looked at it though and to be quite honest there's not a lot of difference between the drug trade and the sex trade and often the two co-mingle, but you have a supply and demand issue. And again, I think it's an opportunity type thing. Perhaps a 14-year-old girl gets pregnant. Maybe that takes her life off the wrong rails. She needs money.

She's going to start selling her body for it. And she's so disgusted by it that she starts to take drugs yeah to numb that well then she becomes a drug addict you see it's just perpetual it just keeps going and going and going and uh i just think the way our society is treating both drugs and the sex trade are moronic they're they're not helping uh at all you're never ever going to get rid of the supply and demand for drugs or sex so why not regulate it yeah no it's it's a conversation we've had on this podcast with different people oh have you okay a lot yeah it's it's a great conversation've had on this podcast with different people. Oh, have you? Okay. A lot. Yeah, it's a great conversation. It's why am I putting my life at risk for $40,000 a year?

And the minute I buy $300 of crack, 3 million more is on the street. It's not going to make a difference. And we're tackling this all the wrong way. If you give these people opportunity and an alternative, you could potentially turn around a lot of lives you also can see it that's the biggest argument in its favor for me is like would you rather have something right in front of you that you have some control over or would you rather keep chasing the same ghost over and over again just like a cloud and no one appears

and i felt like i was on a hamster wheel exactly literally was showing up to work every day to do the same shit and make no difference and it kept getting more and more dangerous and i was like what the fuck am i doing and they're you know they're i won't even say probably there are a lot of cops or ex-cops like you who grow disillusion or grew disillusion with the job because they thought about this and i appreciate that they do because they're not just doing the job you know there's certain industries yeah you can just kind of do the job in right you get it done or you don't but when you're talking about humanity and like

people's lives and the well-being of communities well you want to leave something better than when you found it and what you don't want to do is try to fix a problem by doing something that causes another problem and it look i i can sit here as an armchair quarterback and say that's easy it's hard but it does feel like sometimes something like what you were doing that's been around since the 1930s yeah what's really changed not much you know and to your point there's always going to be some of it so if you if you regulated it that's where i i think there are some great arguments you know i'm always going to play i'm going to play devil's advocate with these because they're not easy answers they're very difficult questions but when we talk about some of the legalization ideas, it's like we need to be open to that.

Absolutely. And I mean, you know, there's several states that are legal. And then there's several states that are medical, like marijuana is legal. But what I would propose is basically all organic type drugs be legal what do you mean by that specifically well like methamphetamine is not organic it's um right it's it's made from a multitude of disgusting things that you wouldn't want to put in your body so obviously there's going to be people that do and whatever but um cocaine marijuana uh you know these pills and stuff and what people tell me is oh my god hundreds of thousands of people are going to die well hundreds of thousands are already dying if you legalize it and regulate it then you know i kind of view it as survival of the fittest if you're dumb enough to do this it's survival of the fittest. If you're dumb enough to do this, it's survival of the fittest. But I don't know a single case where marijuana has killed anybody. That one, I don't.

I'll never understand it. Marijuana is its own category for me. I agree, yeah. It blows my mind. You know, like, I don't have kids, so I can't truly think about at all how I'd approach some of this stuff yet again. Like, haven't been there. So what are you going to do? My thought has been for years, though, like where I play the hypothetical in my head.

I'm like, if I have a 16 or 17 year old who just started driving, I mean, ideally, I don't want them doing anything. But, you know, they're a kid. Like, they're going to do something. Don't do it while you're driving. Number one, keys go somewhere else. You're in trouble right for that yeah that's number one yeah then i actually get to the well if i had my druthers not involving driving a car that is just easy keys put it away but forget the car for a second just like in general if i have no control over where they are and what they're doing would I rather them drink their face off or smoke a joint?

It's not even close in my mind. I'm like, go rip a J. Like, it's the easiest one ever. Absolutely. So much can go wrong. And you don't feel like shit the next day. No, you don't. That's the other thing.

It's like, so why is it like that? And then you look at it and you're like, oh, it's money. That's all it is. That's what it was. It's money. And that's what it was. It's money, but it's coming around and it will eventually be available to the masses. It's just a matter of time at this point. And you've got the Bible beaters in the South

that are still hanging on, but I think it eventually will. Meanwhile, Reverend Alice is not going to join out. Exactly, Exactly. But it's also, you know, to put a little nuance into it as well, it depends on what the use cases of the drugs are too. Like obviously something like cocaine, generally people are just using that to go party or something. But you think about with regulation, you think about like opioids and you see what, know you have the street opioids yep but then you have the legalized racket opioids which hopefully we're we're finally fixing now but i mean you see

what the sacklers did to this oh yeah this country i mean it's just yep that was legalized paulo escobar shit oh absolutely so there's really no difference between the Sacklers and Pablo Escobar. I agree. One bought off Congress. The other one just did whatever the fuck he wanted to do. So in my opinion, they're both cartels. 100% agree. countries bought and paid for. And these pharmaceutical companies will continue to lobby them and make sure that their drugs are approved and disseminated to the masses. Yeah, I think people are finally starting to have some self-awareness on that just through the different things we've seen in society over the last couple years. Because, you know, just look at media and remember, and I say this actually in their defense a little bit, they got to pay the bills. How do they pay the bills?

They pay the bills with advertisers. Yep. When it's the slippery slope you talked about with something else. It's another example. It's like once you start taking it, then you take more and more and more. Now you hire people. You grow bigger bigger you have more on the line and now suddenly you know big advertisers come to you and say oh see i think it's a cop-out though because why couldn't you go the netflix model advertisers take money from people don't want to watch your content i don't disagree at all

i'm saying with the tradition i don't disagree at all i'm'm saying with the tradition, I don't disagree at all. I'm saying I'm looking at how it got here. Yeah. Right? Oh, absolutely. So Netflix feels old. And as a company, I guess it was around in like 06, but like the Netflix we know was streaming was like 2013. Oh, yeah.

That's not that old. No. So I'm talking about over the past nine decades with all these different companies. Padding pockets. Right. And now you're always at the point where i agree with you that could easily be the answer but then then these companies are like but that's new how do we what if it doesn't work so you stay one step ahead of them too and you put

term limits in congress oh this for life shit is bullshit i agree this is bullshit these people are going in there poor as fuck and coming out rich as shit and it shouldn't be it's a public service you should have a term limit on it i've never said this idea before but i want to run this by you yeah and it's some of it i'm like i could tinker with a little bit but here's the general idea in the federal government you have the three besides the judiciary i'm talking about in the executive and government, you have the three besides the judiciary. I'm talking about in the executive and legislative branch. You have Congress, Senate, and the presidency.

My rule would be that you have a maximum amount you could serve in each. So let's keep it simple for a second. Let's say it's eight years in each. And whether that's two four-year terms, ideally that's what it would be because i would want a minimal number of elections for you meaning you know people are always just politicking for the next election so i'd want to minimize that i couldn't perfect it but minimize it and i'd say once you do eight in each you're done so the maximum anyone could ever serve is if a president two-term president had come through congress and the senate so they would the maximum would be 24 years oh my god i think that's too long oh i i do too

fuck i do too i was thinking four but there's been 46 47 yeah 46 presidents right yeah 46 in this country so you might get one outlier once in a while who's actually done eight years in both. Right. But I'm looking at it from a feasibility of actually having time to get something done, which is a fair point. And then what would be the worst case scenario? That'd be the worst case scenario because that actually right there, the three different ones, 24 years, is way better than someone who's 24 years in the house or 24 years in the senate in one place right like it may not be perfect but it's it still incentivizes enough people to want to do the job i guess which is a whole nother conversation what about adding another component to it why do we

always have rich people that are in politics there needs to be some equality in terms of why why do i Yeah. So there needs to be some equality there to get the average Joe, the average person, because these guys are so far removed. They don't even know how much a gallon of milk is. You're saying take the money out of politics. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. 100%. That would be the easiest answer ever. And prohibit any receiving of anything from lobbyists or companies or third parties.

I wish we could live in a world where that could exist and i think technically like we should but what does that require honesty and there is none i'm gonna go even simple fair and correct uh-huh but what else does it require it's gonna be obvious when i it, but that's kind of a rhetorical. Transparency? Part of it. What I'm getting at is you have to have people create the laws to do it. Right. And they're not going to fire themselves. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

So it's like, to me. You'll never hear these guys saying term limits, term limits. No, because they're putting themselves out of a job but what other job do you know where you can vote on your own raise or your own health care they have government health care but they'll prevent the rest of the population from having it yeah how fair is that it's ridiculous it is it's my favorite is when they drop the word i love being a public servant yeah yeah you're a servant're a servant. How are you a servant? Give me a fucking break. A multimillionaire servant. Yeah. My favorite people are the ones who go in there when they're 28 with nothing,

never had a job, and actually maybe they're from means, but they really have no money. And they're 60, and now they're worth $20 million. Yeah, yeah. That we know of when aoc got uh elected i was shocked and kind of happy because i was like this chick's a server like she you can't get more average new yorker than than her on paper right on paper even if you don't agree with her politics it was almost like

hooray for the average person she's not a millionaire she didn't buy her way in that is that is actually all true she beat like joe crowley too who had been there for like 30 years or something that was like in my lifetime anyway that i can remember that was one of the only times where and i don't even pay attention to her politics but whether you agree with it or not you're like man finally an average joe got in and i remember when she won and i was thinking the same thing and this is when i really was starting to look at this at i was starting to become politically very i don't know the term like or disillusioned yeah right and i was starting to look at the psychology of these people and very quickly i'm I'm like, oh, she's going to be like, she represents all the things you just said. But she clearly has whatever that thing is that all these people who want that job have. Yep. And she's going to be the same thing. And that example I just gave of the person. Actually, I think she did get in at 28, which is funny. Yeah, she's young. Talk to me when she's 60. Watch what happens if she hasn't been voted out by them.

But she has great political capital, so I'd bet on her staying in there. And they just want the job forever. And that shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. And when you look at it, these people all work together. They think it's funny. They're like, look at everyone else. Look at them fighting over this stuff we tell them to fight over. Meanwhile, they're like look at everyone else look at them fighting

over this stuff we tell them to fight over meanwhile they're getting drinks at the capital club yes they are it's a joke it is a joke but you know to your point it's like the average american is uh the target not the not the representation no have you ever seen that there's several tiktok videos about you know uh i you know, I think Jay Leno probably was one of the one that started it. He goes on the street and he's like, how many states in America? And it's like it's just a horrible example of dumb Americans. Howard Stern did that. Yeah, he does it too.

And there's several guys on TikTok and it's crazy. Oh, man. yeah he does it too and there's several guys on on tiktok and it's crazy like i'll watch it and i will immediately lose all faith in humanity i do wonder i'm like how many of them are acting but some of them some of them aren't oh yeah they're not there's some that it's like all right it seems that way there's others like i've seen some guy recently going in actually like in Times Square. Yes. That's the one I was watching. Okay.

He's kind of a younger, good looking, dark hair guy. They're not acting. No, they're not acting. And he's like, who's the president? And they're like, um, um, and I'm like, holy fuck. And no matter what answer they say, he goes, correct. Yeah. Yeah.

He's like, that's correct. And they'll be like, really? Yo. They'll be like, really? I'm so smart man yeah it's so funny and i'll finish watching that video and i'll go i don't know whether to laugh or fucking cry oh yeah i agree there was one i saw recently where one of them was where's the queen of england from oh my god i saw that and she's like um i don't the queen of england he's like just guess just guess what did

she say i think she said like idaho idaho yeah she said idaho or iowa or something like that it was something crazy i don't know if that's what i was like holy fuck oh and then where's the united states capital i don't know if you saw that one they're like um miami i was like holy i would have said yes yes you're right he did he goes yes yes no but i would have been serious i've been like you know what that actually is the capital you're right if not it should be yeah it should be oh my god but you're right like when i see those those are the videos where i'm like if all these corrupt people were sitting in a room together trying to like justify what they do yeah show them that video and they'll be like see we're not wrong we gotta lead these sheep see we gotta lead them because they're dumb as shit we gotta lead them yeah well you've been

doing a lot of leading in your life not the transition at there but yeah you see a lot of leading you're somebody this this is i i love the people who just build something, you know, and they, you got into this, as you said, very early on in this podcast, it was simply scratching an itch of like, oh my God, no one really does deal with this. And you wanted to do it as a side hustle. But by 2005, you're like, I need to make this a full-time thing. So were you in, cause you came up with the idea i guess in missouri yes is that where you started then the city yeah only for like let me see i started november of 2005 and i left missouri in

may of 2006. what made you want to go to tampa i was i went to high school there and i absolutely hated the midwest hated it um it was fun for the job but every other part of it i was like god this is horrible i never been yeah you're not missing much you're not missing much um the highlight of of the week is cow tipping and uh you know farming and you know good old corn stuff and it just wasn't for me i went to high school in florida i you know i spent most of the time i feel like in florida so and ironically that's a state everyone goes to to die so it was among other things among other things so it was like you know what i'm going back to florida i'm like fuck this quit my job and left well how quick did you realize when you started even just doing it on the side how quick did you realize oh this also this expertise is not simply like murders or found

deaths it can be things like hoarders and mold removal and stuff like that that was also something that uh was like a light bulb moment so i started just doing the crime scene stuff and it was you know um sporadic it was kind of you know here and there i would do it on my nights or weekends or you know time off um and by the way can you tell people what that comprises of exactly? Which part? Like the, let's start with the crime scenes. So when you're saying clean up a crime scene, obviously everyone's mind goes to, okay, there's a lot of blood, you clean it up. But what's the full? So homicides, suicides, or unattended deaths is basically, or accidents as well. Whether it's a car accident or I was in my garage cutting some wood and my fingers got cut off with it, you know, that type of thing.

So it originally just started to be kind of a side hustle. I went to the department. I said, hey, I want to start this business. They're like, well, okay, just don't do it in the city. I'm like, okay, like it was a stupid request, right? So I'm like, okay, whatever. So I start doing it and it's kind of sporadic here and there. And then, you know, four or five months later, they're like, hey, we changed our mind.

You either need to quit your business or quit this job. And I was like, peace out, motherfuckers. And I turned in my shit and I quit. I literally didn't even think twice about it. Because you could already kind of see like. Well, I couldn't. It was early at that point. So I was like, I need to take a chance on myself

So I was like fuck it and then I was like wait, why am I staying here if I hate it? So I literally rented my house out packed my shit up and drove to Florida So and that's the thing you go to a place like you'd gone to high school there But you were starting the business. Yeah from scratch So I stayed with a friend of mine that I knew from high school there but you were starting the business from scratch there scratch so i stayed with a friend of mine that i knew from high school who was completely gracious enough to let me stay there while i was getting you know on my feet and um i got a job in addition to my business because i needed to make ends meet while i'm you know all my off time i'm marketing marketing you know printing my own business cards a shitty little perforation

on the bottom you know i had no money so um it was very uh humble beginnings needless to say it was a lot of sleepless nights as most good businesses that are built are that's what you that's why so few people are able to do it. Yeah. You got to persevere. It's a huge sacrifice. But you had said this very early in the podcast where I was asking you about the whole like lack of referral system with the cops and everything. So that means that when you were building this, it's not like you were going and making friends with the local police departments or something. Not at all. What were you doing early on in like 06? I was going door to door at apartment complexes, funeral homes, hotels. So my thought process on it was it'll take me fucking 20 years to go door to door residentially.

And I can't afford to do direct mail or anything. So I'm going to go to places that have the masses hotels apartment complexes and you know uh thousand two thousand people under one roof essentially so that's kind of where i got started and so with hotels i would imagine okay there's the occasional murder but they're also you know people are staying in there all the time someone dies unexpectedly all the time all the time a lot of shit happens in hotels and most people think it's just you know the pay by the hour type hotel um and it's not it's every you know we've done five star hotels in miami and we've done 49 a night hotels in tampa so it runs

the gamut whoa all right i do have a lot of questions about this we so i have you here like all day because you're flying out tonight so we have time i haven't had to do this before but lawnmowers just started about three minutes ago outside so for everyone listening what i'm going to do is i'm going to shut this down for the next 15 minutes you're not going to hear that and we'll come right back i just want to make sure that's done so the recording's not messed up but we'll be right back right on all right we're back sorry for that little interlude but once in a while it feels like every time i'm here with someone on a friday like that cues up and then you can hear the the maybe you should start doing it on thursdays i know but a lot of people i love friday recordings. Everyone's in a good mood.

Thank god it's Friday, right? Yeah, it's not a bad problem to have. Usually they've been quicker like this year when it happens. But anyway, I digress. So the last thing we were talking about was the fact that a lot of stuff came through hotels. And we were talking about it doesn't matter what kind of hotel. There's all kinds of shit you see. And so that's a good business relationship to have but like it makes me think about your people you have working for you too like we were

talking about law enforcement oh boy these people are special well it depends you and i were talking about the other thing too i wasn't even getting at that but i'm saying like you were you were talking about law enforcement compartmentalizing all this stuff and it's kind of a professional thing. But in a business, I mean you're hiring all different types of people. Correct. You're hiring a lot. There's turnover. And you throw them into a job and suddenly they got to go see some of the most horrific shit ever.

Correct. Like do you have a lot of people deal with severe issues from doing this? You know, surprisingly, no. lot of people deal with severe issues from doing this you know surprisingly no and i think it's because we usually choose people that have been around this in some way or another for example a fireman uh somebody that's worked in the funeral home um maybe somebody that's a nurse, basically people that have been exposed in some way or another. But it's crazy because everyone asks me that like, man, I bet your attrition is due to kind of it being mentally heavy. And to my knowledge, I don't think we've ever lost anybody because of that. We lose people because it's so physically demanding

it's difficult work physically you're lifting up beds and couches and furniture wearing a tyvek suit and a respirator in florida in florida and it's 140 degrees in an attic and wearing a respirator is very similar to breathing out of a straw. That's what it feels like. You don't get full inhale or exhale. I'm just trying to picture this right now. Is the respirator the like meth lab gas mask thing? Yes, correct.

Okay. So your breathing is, you know, inhibited. So it's more difficult. You really have to pace yourself. So an average, say, eight-hour job feels like a 16-hour job because your lungs had to work twice as hard. Wow. Now, when you do one of these scenes, though, is it totally dependent on the complexity of the scene as far as how many people have to go out there? So every job is just different. Always minimum of two. i'll bet because you know and i've done jobs by myself out of just pure necessity and it's both frustrating uh and difficult at the same time because it you know i remember i did one

three months ago three or four months ago we were slammed and i'm not even in the field anymore and they're like uh we have a decomp can you go do it i'm like a decomp unattended death like somebody died and decomposed i'm like yeah sure so i get there and of course it happens on a king size bed i'm like what the fuck lifting up a king size bed by myself like it's maneuvering it right i look like a monkey fucking a football so i was like this is not funny right here at all and so um that's a good one yeah you start getting frustrated and obviously the job takes twice as long because you're by yourself and you know so you gotta you gotta do what you gotta do to get it done but it's not always pretty and stuff like that infuriates or um you know it just exhausts the the employees and that's why their longevity is probably six to twelve months on average wow that's crazy turnover

yeah it's a lot i mean it's not mcdonald's turnover no their turnover is way higher but it we do have yeah pretty high turnover yeah because i i guess i'm thinking of it like no disrespect to mcdonald's workers but you can kind of plug and play in that you can come in and know your way around in two seconds this is a specialized job like you you gotta be trained you gotta understand what to do and like here's a question when you're doing some of these scenes i mean well i'm most of them it's like you have blood seeped into everything so when we're talking about cleaning i mean you're not jesus christ i assume you're still leaving stuff that has stains and and shit on it so there's actually they call it crime scene

cleaning it's actually it should be called probably crime scene construction or deconstruction because we do a ton of demo oh really removing floors walls uh seal plates door frames doors taking apart beds this is expensive though oh yeah it's expensive i mean it's not easy work does insurance cover that it does it covers everything oh wow okay that totally changes the game i never thought about this yeah so it's under the same clause as like a flood or a fire you know it's considered accidental damage well that's good yeah for the homeowner it's great yeah because then you know they're not out all this money i would have never asked that question if i knew that because i figured you know if insurance is covering it and it's like redo, yeah, you should do everything. I was just thinking about it from like a – I've seen – for people, by the way, who haven't seen your content online, which we're going to talk about that and what you do with the business.

They're really amazing stuff. But especially on YouTube, when you watch your long-form videos and particularly where you get to see the full scene. Oh, yeah. When you have a good 10, 20 or even 30 minute video taking people through like you and I were watching one today, for example, with a decomposed body where it was a hoarder. Right. And you see everything that's got to be fixed in a place like this. It's basically – it's almost like i'd be like all right bring in the blowtorch just like let's let's build a new house and a lot of times we we recommend that and they

are insistent upon keeping it and rehabilitating it so sometimes that's the better way to go especially when we're doing mobile homes um we have one video i can't remember the the name of it um it was in the last 12 months and it was a woman that had like 50 cats in her house and they pissed everywhere and the urine ruined all the way through the subfloor in the smell hoarder yeah it was a bad cat hoarder when cats take over it could be it's in a trailer mobile home i don't don't know. Let's see. And by the way, I'm going to make this distinction right now. When I go to put a video in the corner as we're recording this live, I'm going to tell people the name of the video. And if you hear it skipped to us being back afterwards, that's because I literally can't put it in the corner because of the content, which we'll talk about.

Your content has graphic to it. So we don't want to get demonetized with something quickly. But what I'll do is I will put the links to any videos we use in the description so you guys can check that out. And I would highly recommend you do. I'm going to click this one right now. It's called when cats take over. You tell me if this is the one you're looking for it's a little that's the game plan wow all right so you get the idea there so this this is a really that's a mild one in comparison to oh i'll bet oh yeah yeah yeah like again the one you and i were watching it's literally like oh there's the like they took the body out because it was a decomp yeah but i forget the name of that video if i think it's crunchy wig that might that sounds i think it's because

that's one of my favorite ones it was like she had a um milk from 1997 oh yeah and the eggs from 2013 right and this is like in 2020 or 2021 yeah yeah yeah so it was a woman who died and wasn't found for months she was a hoarder her house among other things among other things looked a mess she's obviously had some mental problems and so you they remove the body but they leave behind the pieces of it that didn't come with it at that point right so you're you're like, they're like picking up. Was that a wig? We thought initially that it was her scalp. And then we realized when we peeled it off of the bed.

Peeled it off the bed. Along with the skin from her neck, that it was a wig. At least that's what we're telling ourselves. And there was? There was maggot larva nest inside there. And I think, you know, what is that? ASMR? Is that what it's called? When you're crunching the wig?

I mean... Is that a thing? Yeah. They crunch wigs? No. Oh, I see what you're saying. Like ASMR, they enjoy the sound of it. My staff was

obsessed with crunching the wig that's why we called it crunchy wig i don't think we got to that part of the video yeah oh my god yeah i remember when she was going oh remember she kept doing that and it made that sound yeah yeah that's they were liking it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of ASMR people that love that sound, apparently. Crunch and wig. I guess so. Yeah. What do you know? So this is exactly what we've been trying to get to all day as far as like what puts you beyond just like building an amazing business like you did for a long time before a camera ever rolled.

Right. Which you deserve a ton of credit for is I think you said this but you started franchising in 2016 so 11 years in we started doing social media in 2019 right so you were this was at that point I think you were telling me this part in the car but in the 2010s was a lot of Google Ads and stuff at that point oh yeah for growing business yeah so you grow this huge business you had locations in a bunch of states by 2019 yeah not like today right like still a at that point oh yeah for growing business yeah so you grow this huge business you had locations in a bunch of states by 2019 not like today but like still a lot yeah and then in 2019

you make the decision for a job as graphic as this i might add to start rolling camera have a videographer and a media team and capture what you do. What made you want to do that other than, well, social media is big. No, not at all. So there was two things that were the catalyst for it. Number one, you said it already. Nobody knows that the service exists. So it was an awareness thing. The second thing was we had been getting approached by L.A. producers to do a reality show. And they kept getting us under contract,

filming a sizzle, and then getting told, ooh, this is pretty graphic. I don't think we can find sponsors for it. Right? This was before Netflix. I think this was back in 2012. We got our first contract for a production company company how did you get in front of people like

that initially we didn't they found us i didn't even know that thing existed yeah but how did they on the internet i guess creative producing okay i guess so you know so these guys come and they say hey i'm a producer which apparently a lot of people can call themselves a producer and not really that is true yeah know anything there's some good ones too oh yeah there's absolutely some good ones but me being a lay person not in that industry i'm like oh okay you know i don't know who the fuck you are you know so um let me film a sizzle i want to sell it and you know this and it's not okay fine so they they keep and everybody wanted

a different angle one of them wanted the crime scene one of them wanted the hoarding uh one of them wanted um just the personalities of the text and kind of blur out the actual work and i'm like okay so it actually went nowhere um so seven years later i was like you know fuck it we there's an awareness issue in this industry. And number two, I believe that this content is desirable for people. What made you think that specifically? Because everyone asked me, when I told them what I did, they would all say, oh my God, I just want to do a ride-along with you. I just want to see it. So I thought, you know what, let's try this.

And my staff was all against it at the time they said this is a fucking bad idea don't do it and i said well what are you what's your reasoning they said this is going to come off as uh callous and insensitive and i said no no no we're not doing it that way we're doing it educational we're going to explain everything we do why we do it and we want to show the human component component of it and focus on the technicians that do the work were you thinking about this i'm just curious from like how you wanted to attack at standpoint were you thinking about this from we're going to start just doing it in my location yes tampa we're not going to do any right it in my location, like Tampa. Yes, only my location. We're not going to do any franchises.

Right, it was a pilot. And that's all we did for the first probably year and a half. Because you have full control over that. Right, right. So I said, okay, I hired a videographer, and we outsourced the editing, and I said, all I want you to do is follow the crew around and film them on what they're doing.

Nothing is scripted. Nothing is censored other than obviously the person's name and address or whatever, which we don't even talk about anyway. So we did that and we started posting the videos and I was like, holy shit. We had 100,000 subs within like a few weeks. And I thought, okay. On YouTube. And YouTube sending me this award and I'm like wait what is this my videographer's like hey dumbass you get an award for a hundred thousand subs i'm like i didn't even know that so i didn't either yeah i didn't know that and then

she's like the next one is a million i'm like well that's a big jump you're almost there yeah we're almost we'll look how many years later, right? Looking near 850 something. Yeah. 852. Yeah. So 852. So thank God it worked out and they were wrong. And now we've been doing it ever since.

And we even send the videographer to franchise locations to highlight them and highlight the brand. Now you said there were people against it, worried about it being insensitive, which was perfectly a reasonable assumption, but you were coming at it from an educating standpoint. think about, okay, what are 10 key things, for example, that people need to know about what we do and so on and so on? Or was it more like, no, let's go roll camera at a scene and then figure out afterwards what the teaching points there would be? So a little bit of both. What I did was I told the staff, the camera's going to gonna be there do like you normally do act like you normally act But I want you to explain what you're doing

Hmm. So then once that filmed it got edited it got sent to me and then I said, okay I can see a picture of a child in the background on the wall Blur that out like I would I was purposely like looking for because you're in people's homes do you have to get permission to roll camera yeah we had we had everybody um sign a video release and we still do to this day yeah i would assume so um and so you know i would just make sure that there was no uh identifying information and uh then we just started kind of rolling it and learning as we went yeah and and i, obviously like it's worked out amazing. Consider YouTube and very well. Yeah. Four and a half on, on Tik TOK and Tik TOK. You said you had like,

what was it? I saw a quick vice video with you a few days ago. You had 2.2. Yeah. 2.2 million in two weeks. I was like, what? This is right when TikTok came out. I didn't even know what it was. This is 2019, right? Yeah. And they came to me, my marketing director. Hey, there's this new thing, TikTok. We want to post on it.

I go, I don't know what the hell that is, but go ahead. I didn't even know what it was. So she's like, it's just shorts. And I was like, I don't know what that is either, but go ahead. It sounds good. So post it. And then two weeks later, she's like, you're you're not gonna fucking believe this we have 2.2 million followers and i go i'm not sure what that means but that's great cool that's the business that's

great and you know i i find that tiktok is uh kind of the unicorn you don't we still don't really understand how it's monetized they still don't tell people how it's monetized all of a sudden we just see a money dump in our account and i don't tell people how it's monetized all of a sudden we just see a money dump in our account and i don't know why and it's not a lot of money not not even close to youtube i'm not even in i've i've never even gone into their creator phone because it's so finicky on there oh yeah and it's so little and when i've gone to apply there's always been a problem like oh we can't read your passport i'm like you know what i don't even want to fuck with this this is my marketing like i don't need any money from this i'll worry

about that somewhere else because it's it is minimal but it was you know tiktok to me i could count not i can't count all the things i've been wrong about in my life trying to make a call on something probably one of the few calls that i've looked at where I'm like, how did people not see this was tick-tock? Yep, because I went on there I downloaded it in like May 2019 Yeah March 2019 and I was going on there and I got to be the only dude in my 20s on there at the time It was always like no one it was all teeny boppers. Yes, yeah, well to 16 year old 100% Yep, most of the videos were pretty much the same but i'm looking at this and the first time

i went into it i'm like all right you know it's like a weeknight i'm like all right let me check this out i'm like i'm gonna spend 20 minutes yeah look up it's been three hours and i'm like i'm calling everyone i know between the ages of 16 and 25 with a talent and saying stop whatever you're doing and go to no one listened right but Right. But it was like, they really, and then the pandemic. It's my favorite platform. I find it, and I know this is going to sound weird. I find it so educational. I have learned so much from TikTok.

Now, from a business standpoint, I don't, I mean, I'm sure people are killing it on there, but you know, we're not hardly making any money on there. You're marketing. Yeah. You're marketing. Cross-branding. That's what I'm saying because you were also telling me, and correct me if I'm wrong on this if I heard this incorrectly, but you get a lot of referral business because people see you on TikTok. Yes, a ton.

You don't ever need to make a dime on it. No. That's it. No, you don't ever need to make a dime on it. No. That's it. No, you don't. But the thing is, like I said, it's the unicorn, and their algorithm and rules are constantly changing. Yes. And I feel bad for my media people because they're constantly trying to figure it out. We'll get a video taken down, and for no reason, it'll just say something. Community guidelines.

Community guideline violation. Then they'll have to go in and find out, well, what is that? Oh, we used a word death. We got to redo it. So they're constantly having to evolve on what we post on different platforms. That was my next question. How do you guys even get some of the shit through that you do because i have learned firsthand like i make it impossible for tick tock to give me a community guidelines violation to the

point that on purpose for tick tock because it's also no longer at all my main platform i'm youtube i make my concept for youtube shorts first which from my line is right. Can be very different from TikTok. Like I'll have a video do 27, 28 million on YouTube and it will do a hundred thousand on TikTok because it's not optimized. Yeah. The difference is key. So I don't care as much anymore, but just so that the fans who are just on there know I'm at least posting content. I will take content from that I would make for YouTube. That that is perfectly everything's fine on youtube and i will bleep out every single thing and blur ruin the video right and people are like what the fuck and i'm like listen i make it impossible exactly yeah but you guys you're

showing bloody crime i've been i've had videos not bam but they get the eye on it, which basically takes away all its reach for like a cut on the face. Oh, my God. Yeah. So here's my opinion of it. I don't know this to be the case. So they'll limit the ad revenue on YouTube. And we feel that they haven't banned us, so to speak, because they're making so much money off of us so it's almost like a um we're going to penalize them by not giving them the lion's share of the money that they're supposed

to get that every other you know creator gets we're going to take that part but we're we're going to limit the revenue on it because they they haven't told us um you know we've posted like i said blood uh brains um you know you name it we've posted it on there and i think it's because they see how many views and followers and subs we have that they're like well fuck people clearly like the shit yeah now you're okay that's the thing on youtube for the shorts which is to compare to tiktok yeah you can do anything yeah because it doesn't matter right it's gonna get interesting when they have it actually monetized in january oh is that when they're doing it i'm curious to see how that's gonna work because it's not the same all they're the way it's

supposed to be is that you know one out every 10 videos you scroll to will be an ad which means all the videos around that share ad revenue i don't know if they're going to treat it the same as like limited or whatever we'll see yeah but i actually and this shows you how little i know about some things with this i really got to figure it out but you saying that like all your stuff gets limited meaning severely demonetized but they still make a lot of money because they put ads on it and now i pull up we've been pulling up your videos today, and I've been paying attention to how many ads there are, and all of them start with an ad.

I never thought about that. So when they limit the monetization, they're kind of defeating the purpose because they still put the ads on there, and that's supposed to be the whole point. Well, they are, but they're taking, so I was on, I don't know who told me this, but I was under the impression we're 80-20. The creator gets 80%. YouTube takes 20. When they limit the ad, it's flip-flopped.

So they're taking 80%. So if you'll notice, there's no limitation of ads. There's just limitation in our bank account. Which is one of the most counterintuitive things ever. Exactly. So they're just penalizing us, but they're still making money off of it. That's why they'll never kick us off. They're making bank off of us.

Yeah, I don't think that's the thing. I don't think you do anything like you just you literally post graphic content. It's not. It's not sexual. It's not violence. Right. It's just cleanup. Yeah, Right. The things that they're looking at have to do with spreading what they deem to be misinformation, which is a whole not a rabbit hole.

Yeah. Or things that are like porn or on the edge of that. That's different. And we mark all of ours adult only. Right. So I don't want any kids, you know, coming upon it or anything like that. And, you know, I have a five year old, so i don't want him seeing any of that yeah yeah and i think that's that's the thing where you hit like is this video made for kids yes no yes exactly i've always hit no on that

i was kind of surprised at our demographic i don't know if you've ever taken a look at yours but ours has got to be all women right 75 female over the age of 40 yep and you're surprised by that i was but then it was explained to me that that's the same it mirrors true crime and they love it great segue yes this i wanted to ask you about this yeah so you're because you started this in 2019 yeah and you were like the Yeah. You hit the ultimate stride of what had been building in the mid-2010s of the true crime genre heating up. And particularly with the murder mysteries and stuff for women. So you're not doing murder mysteries, but you are like one of the middlemen within that universe. And they're all

curious about this i know and they're all gonna hate me for saying this but i am burnout living living the real life of true crime so i i'm not a follower of true crime even though i'm in that age group or you know uh but apparently we share the same demographics yeah i was talking with your guy tony about this. Yeah. Because he and I were just talking about like different target audiences and exchanging info there. Like I would assume yours is male, probably under the age of 35. Spot on.

I knew it. Yeah, my strike zone, the heart and soul of what I do when you cross the platforms all together yeah it's 22 to 25 but the the demo is 18 to 34 yeah and it's and it's heavy like it's heavy at 18 and it's heavy at 34 but you know that probably they have where the graph like peaks is 22 25 but yeah spot on yeah and you know what youtube also youtube changed that when i started to go on YouTube, I used to have – in podcasting, the majority of the time, there are exceptions, but the majority is female host, heavy female listener. Yeah. Right? So call it – and again, there's exceptions, but call it – it's going to be at least 90% females listening, 95. Males, same thing.

You know, if you're like solid, you can do like 80-20. Yeah. There were rare ones like Call Her Daddy had half and half at one point. I don't know if it's still that way, but that's exceptional. I had for a while, I was like 70-30. Like when I was building through- 70% male? Yeah. And I was like, oh, wow. All right. So yeah and i was like oh wow all right so we're

doing okay with the female audience because i'm a guy it's more built for guys sure great you know cool we're bringing everyone in and then on youtube they really focused it so now it's like i mean i have to look at the numbers but it's got to be 90 male and that's not a bad thing no no it's just how it is but that's one thing that i love about youtube is you can get super granular with your audience demographics i mean down to the freaking type of computer they're using they tell us you know is it is it mobile is it a pc or is it a mac you know it's like that's pretty cool in terms of retargeting and remarketing yeah now it sounds like you you look at this part a lot.

Oh, yes. Yeah. I look at the analytics a lot. That's what you want to say. Yeah. And what does that, from like a business perspective, what is that? How does that help the most? Well, it tells me, so you can take that from the YouTube platform.

For example, we're 75% female over the age of 35. So I can then go into YouTube. I mean into, I'm sorry, Facebook. And I can target those same demographics. And that way I'm not wasting money on females under that age or males that aren't probably interested in it. And you have, I'm just painting an example. You have 45, 50-year-old females in there with 80-year-old mothers. Exactly.

Who die in their house. I mean, it's no secret. Who makes the decisions in households? Females. Women. Yeah. Any buying decision, a woman's going to make it. Yeah.

She might not pay for it, but she's going to make the decision. Yeah. So we are making sure that we are in front of them especially especially for i would say for like personal family decisions oh yeah big time oh and you are at the i mean you're like a prime example from the food you eat to the school that your child will go to that woman is making all those decisions i'm saying in um in conflict stressful or difficult times though is what i'm getting she'll make the decision and that's yeah wow so that wow you're tactical with that that's good

well i had to learn you know to be because you didn't have to you already had a big business well that's true for you but you know you can cast a wide net and blow a shit ton of money or you can study this stuff and get granular with it and that's what i decided to do so when i meet with my team on a weekly basis i'm like hey this video is doing well why do you think it's doing well versus the one last week that didn't do well so and what we've been able to figure out is if I put a Say a mole job video of a mole job and a video of a gruesome crime scene We will get one percent of the views on the mole job. Oh, of course Yeah, nobody gives a shit people and you'll even see in the comments people are there for the gore they want to see it why do you think that is you know i've been asked that a lot and what i think it is is it's curiosity of the unknown

right so i'm curious about things i don't know about um and you know for example i don't i don't know anything about flying planes but if a pilot made a video that those controls give me anxiety like i'll get on a plane and i'll see 8 000 controls i'm like how the fuck do you know what you're doing if he did like a five minute video saying well this is what i do for this i would watch it because it's curiosity you know and i think as a human being we're all curious of what happens to you when you die yes and it's curiosity you know and i think as a human being we're all curious of what happens to you when you die yes and it's not pretty and by me explaining it like hey when you die and you decompose your heart stops beating you decompose 15 minutes later your body starts breaking down your urine your feces liquid you know your blood Rigor mortis sets in. You know, and people, they know it from biology maybe, but they don't know it.

Yeah. And we're never showing a body. It's just the aftermath. Because, by the way, when you get there outside of the shrapnel, apparently. Yeah. That's left behind. Like, they have at least removed that. Yes.

You're left to deal with. The aftermath. Yeah. Yeah. that's left behind like they have at least removed that yes you're left to deal with the aftermath yeah the skin the brains the skull the teeth um the poop you know whatever how long does it take to treat because like you and i talked about you have such high turnover in this which actually surprised me because it's again it's this is a highly skilled and specialized job. This is not, you're not just plucking someone off the street basic to do this. How, how do you train people? How long does that take? A long time.

So they're gone by the time they're trained. Yeah. I mean, I would say it's a good three months to train them. And if they only last six, we're only getting three good months out of them. I mean, it's very expensive too. At least you're taking them for your training, but this is another thing. It's like at least you're taking them on the jobs to actually help and be of asset value doing it. But still, like, it's also technically a risk every time.

Oh, 100%. So we have to be very selective about who we hire. How do you decide? We take – we have a test called a predictive index. So we get to know kind of what makes them tick, personality. We look for empathy. It's a deal breaker if they don't have empathy. We make sure that they're following our core values, that they represent our core values.

And what are those? Authenticity is one. So, for example, if somebody comes in that's perhaps, I don't know, heavy in tattoos and – Could you just turn that mic towards you a little bit? Right here. Money. Maybe they're heavy in tattoos or their hair is dyed and they're trying to cover it up for the interview. That's not authentic to me. I want you to be who you are. I don't want

you to cover up who you are. So we look for that empathy, obviously authenticity, you know, to be, be who you are. And then we have one that is difficult to analyze, but you can kind of get it out of them with certain questions, and we call it gift of the struggle. And it comes from my start of the business. So we want someone who has not been spoon fed their life and uh someone that's not entitled so maybe someone that's had some life experiences maybe um not has always had the best luck or and we want to be able to train them and lift them up and mold them and to hopefully keep them in the in the in the company and you also you were telling me i think it's great like because you've been fortunate enough to to build this amazing huge business which i don't know if you count this way with it being the franchise model but just to at least put a number on it how many employees do you have across all the oh wow um i would ballpark a couple hundred i would say

at least yeah i would say i'd say you know the average location probably has three or four right so times 46 right and some of them definitely have more too yeah like we do yeah yeah so because i guess it depends on the size of the business in the area and the types of jobs you often get. But still, like you were telling me there's there's people who started on the jobs on the ground and we have as opposed to a smaller company or even when I first started. I didn't have any, you know, when somebody said, well, what's my growth potential? I'm like, it's just me and you, man. and website creators and franchise trainers a lot of them want to go into franchise training because they start out as a tech so they learn from the ground up so who better to teach a new franchisee than somebody who's walk the walk i actually think i i think franchising gets forgotten about in the business conversation sometimes. I'm a fan. I think, like I said earlier, I learned a lot about it doing that full term paper on McDonald's and seeing what went into it.

I also saw how successful a lot of people were and how hard they worked with it. It was very cool because it opens up another line of entrepreneurship with a little more stability where you can, you can get people, you know, you can get some freeloaders and you got to not let those people continue the franchise, which you know something about too. But you get people who like, they're excited to do this and they feel like they're a part of it. They feel like they have some ownership in it and they technically do because they're representing the shield i i think

it's a really especially like talking with some people who have been very successful like you running a big business that that does that like i think it's a very cool thing thank you what i like most about it is it's a team sport yes um entrepreneurship is very lonely you know i did it by myself for a really long time and it's lonely. And when you're franchising, you have a team. Yeah. And we're all in it for the same common good. So it's more rewarding.

For sure. And I think, you know, anytime you can create some sort of like family atmosphere. Yeah. It's got to be more fun that way. Oh, yeah. Totally. family atmosphere yeah it's it's more it's got to be more fun that way oh yeah you know totally and and again like i've always believed that i haven't had to face this myself yet because i've i've never had an employee i've done all this myself to this point but it's not going to be that way forever it's like when i bring people in i want them to feel like this is theirs including paying them like it you know like incentivizing them to to be a part of it because

no one is ever going to care like you do when you start something that is just how it is that's a lesson that i learned yeah um took me a little too long to learn that well i mean it's obviously you have yeah i mean it just it's been it's been a long time and i think that's a common mistake that entrepreneurs make though is you know they get completely disappointed in their employees because they either don't put as many hours in, they don't work as hard. But, you know, it took a while to understand that, that that's not their baby. It's your baby. You know, they're there because they either enjoy the work and they want to, you know, put food on the table. So you can't have the same expectations what's

the hardest part though in anything to me is when you're talking about the people who are on the front of the front lines so they're not high up in the business in in any business that's not the people who are getting paid the most so i'm thinking about the people you hire to start as a tech going out in the field it's still the most serious work yes it is and you got it that's why you put the i love some of those tests you have you put them through these different tests to understand their personality to the best of your abilities you're still going to get something wrong oh yeah the nature there's no way right but you're doing your best to be able to sift them out but on top of all that they're not just doing the job.

This is what's amazing. A lot of them are going on camera too. Yes. And they got to talk people through it. So I got to imagine, you know, you don't get your druthers of picking every single person to also be like, oh, are you good on camera? Yeah, exactly.

But they kind of, a lot of them are pretty damn good on camera. They're okay. I mean, we've had, you can definitely tell by the views, the people that they like and don't like. And you'll see in the comments, I miss the old crew. Where's, you know, Laura and Juan and, you know, all these other people. And, you know, but I can't hire for the camera. I've got to hire for them doing a great job in a safe way and honesty and integrity. I can't.

We're not a talent agency. I'm glad you said that. That's a good example because you have a obviously would like the following you've built and what you did where you were also the first people on camera like yourself and stuff. Right. It's easy to get caught in the trap of like content world. Yeah. Let's go. But as much as you want to make great content and you have, I'll say, you do still have to prioritize the job itself.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's just kind of icing on the people who they would have targeted when they came to you in 2012, those producers and stuff. That was before the true crime stuff was blowing up. Oh, yeah. So whether or not those producers were any good or not, I'll give them credit for at least being in the right zip code there. At least they had good ideas. Right?

Yeah. But I wonder if they could have foreseen, maybe not foreseen how big it got. I don't want to, that's hard to do. But foreseen what would make people want to watch this. Like you talk about the curiosity, the unknown. I think that's spot on. I think that's, you know, like I remember having my friend Skylar Bouchard in here who – she's a great concept creator. I'll show you her stuff after. But she's a foodie.

She's been doing it for a decade too. She started when she was like 17 or something like that and has built a great big following on there. And she's Mrs. Happy. She's just happy all the time, making food. It always looks great. Sometimes I can't watch it because i get hungry yeah but like you know she'll be making all this and she's sitting here telling me i'm like well you know when you're not on camera and you're not with one of your producers or something like and you're just figuring shit out like do you like to do anything she's like yeah i listen to

podcasts i'm like oh what kind of podcast and she's like i'm just gonna sound weird but i listen to murder podcasts yeah and i'm like really and she starts going through this and you know she's like the way she's describing it is there's something about also females are very i'm gonna put words in her mouth a little bit here so i'll say it wrong but it was along the eye the lines of females are very curious about what frankly usually males are capable of doing you know so that's kind of like grown that whole space because then it's almost like they want to know what do we look out for and stuff like that and so i would imagine if your audience is also pretty similar that aftermath is like i'm just trying to get in their psychology they're probably thinking like damn if that ever happened to me what would my family have to deal with

well we have gotten some emails um actually some pms on instagram and direct messages and stuff that said um i was considering killing myself and um I was watching one of your videos, and I saw what the aftermath was, and I can't do that to my family, so thank you. And that was a response I was not anticipating. And I got more than one of those. And I was like, oh, my God, thank you for messaging. You know, like, that was left field.

I never thought that it would go that direction not at all but that's like so powerful yeah that's a cool obviously very happy about it um because i think that people people just want to feel better yeah and they don't want to cause more damage to their families and stuff. And I think they didn't think past that. When they saw the video of a suicide or the aftermath of one, they thought, I can't do that to my family. I just can't. Wow.

I didn't even think of that. Yeah, I didn't either until I got the messages. That's cool that, you you know you go to make something where it's just like oh we're going to educate and it's good for the business too but then you know there's a human element to it like in the content there's obviously a human element in what you do

I mean one of the things I saw on your website a few days ago when I was looking that I thought was really you know a whole rabbit hole to go down and potentially very cool was it's almost like slid in there too. You're not advertising it, but you still say it and you're talking about, I may get the words wrong, but it was like, in addition to what we do, we are also like counselors and support systems and stuff like that so what do you mean i i can use

my imagination but specifically like what does that look like so we have a referral system for therapists so and it's it's been kind of organic so several therapists have reached out to us from all over the country and said hey i know you come across people that need whether it's grief or hoarding or whatever it might be um would you refer us and i'm like yeah and we just started collecting these business cards and collecting them and i'm like we we need to do something with this we need to put a up a map and a database so people can find counselors so you know we don't get any money off of it. It's just, you know, it's simply a referral to the therapist. But on scene, though, too. We have to act like one, yeah.

Yeah. So it's more, the way we train it is, it's less talking and more listening. Because your opinion is not needed, your ears are needed. And that's all people want they just want to listen they want someone to listen to them how often when you're doing a job and let's talk about you know the we're talking about the jobs that involve death specifically here obviously and

there's other important work whether it be like crazy mold or crazy hoarding that didn't involve a death and there's stuff there but i want to focus on on the i guess the worst of the worst like how often are you doing the job and like the family is staying there the whole time a lot really and that's always made me uncomfortable um i think i'm more uncomfortable for them than i am me to hear it to smell it to watch it um i think would be difficult do you really do you not not to say like you can turn it off and be unempathetic but like this is your job. So is there, I'm trying to think of the right word here. Is there like a level of expectation and acceptance at the same time that that's just a part of it and you're used to it and you still actively recognize it though, but you can deal with it well, kind of like within law enforcement?

Absolutely. It's the same. To me, it's the same. I can't speak for the other people that clean up. But for me, it's easier because I never see the person. So there's no human component to it. So I go into it as I'm cleaning up a mess. So I could give you a quart of motor oil and you could pour it in your living room and I would treat that the same way that I treat blood cleanup. For the job itself. It's just a job. It's just a cleanup.

There's certain circumstances that will trigger me, and I'm sure others as well like if it's a child um or you know um a particularly violent death or maybe a uh suicide with a um very detailed note you gotta i mean you gotta kind of do what you do to really understand that yeah it's not you know i've had a fortunate life in that way i've never walked in on a dead body yeah that's seen one that's a good thing i've never walked you know what i mean it's just not but you would feel differently if you walked in and found your mother dead as opposed to walking in and finding a stranger yes of course right so i think that's pretty normal but imagine walking in and just seeing a mess and no person

you would go oh my god what happened like that? Like, that's blood. But there's no connection. Right. And that's the way I look at it. Well, that was actually, once again, you're doing this a lot today. I was kind of, the next thing I was going to ask, you know, you can- Clairvoyant.

You can like, you can compartmentalize the job of the body you don't see and the people you didn't know. And like you said, there are some things that can trigger a little more for sure. can compartmentalize the job of the body you don't see and the people you didn't know and like and like you said there are some things that could trigger a little more for sure but you know and i hope you never have to do this by the way but i gotta imagine that probably wouldn't matter if you walked in and found your mom like that or something like that like even if you've seen all the worst shit you know i don't know um i don't think i could do it yeah if yeah if it was

somebody that i know i care about or you know um such a bizarre thing i would have to remove myself from that yeah yeah it's like you know there's such a finality to I would have to remove myself from that, yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, there's such a finality to it. That's the part that's, you know, and it's weird because I've never, some people are just, I don't want to say okay with death, but process it more healthy. I don't know if that's a good analogy's a good analogy but makes sense i'm not one of those people um so if you know if somebody passed away that was very close to me that's probably something that would take me twice as long to get over as opposed to somebody else and it's because of the finality of it it's just so unfinished to me i wouldn't have expected you to say that yeah most people don't um so it's it's very difficult for me yeah it's like i said i i in that respect when i not

that i haven't dealt with of course i dealt with death but i think relative to a lot of other people i know i think i've had it, knock on wood, really, really good. And I'm fortunate about that. But whenever I have faced it with someone close to me, it's, you know, I'm not this guy

who sits here and Googles about it because I can't. Yeah. You know what I mean? I can't control it. I'm just not as curious of a person as I am. That's just something that's not,

I don't know. Like, I just don't do that. I don't know if's just something it's not i don't know like like i just don't do that i don't know if i'm afraid of it or i i don't know but but you look at it differently yes for example if your yes grandparents died you're sad but you also understand they're old they live their life right as opposed to a friend that's your age you really are clairvoyant yeah yes that's exactly yeah that's exactly my thought that there's uh unfinished business with that if it's a friend that's your age it's not supposed to happen that way i remember when my 101 year old great grandma died yeah i mean it was sad because she was with her like the whole way yeah you know i was like i think i was 17 when she died which is like so cool that i had that

yeah but you know it was sad watching my grandma cry at the funeral for sure you know i'm a human but all in all like in the in the grand scheme of it that was a good funeral week compared to a lot of others because it's like damn she lived 101 years exactly good for her and like the finally when she got to the last one and it's like okay you know yeah but that's different like you'll never hear that at a 10 year old funeral exactly man he had 10 good years good for him like no one's gonna say that they're gonna go fuck he was taken away way too young you don't hear it at a 70 year old's funeral yeah it's there's something about it where it's like people have an expectation of when it's okay to pass on it's a good way to put it they do and i think it's different for everyone so like for me i have no desire to live to 101

years old if i can't wipe my own ass i don't want to live you know that old unless 100 is the new 70 when you get there fuck i don't know you know it's just like i'm getting old now and everything hurts you know so i think everyone has a different expectation of it i think that's fair to say yeah but it's also like i i don't it's it's so weird because it gets to like the whole meaning of life thing, I think. That's why it's so hard to put it into words. But the idea that like even someone who was like expected to die for a long time that was sick, it's like one minute they're here, the next minute they're not. What the fuck? Like, what do you mean?

You can't. You know, it's funny that you bring that up. We had a case. It was on Mother's Day, as a matter of fact. And this elderly man was going to the grocery store. He was probably in his 80s. And he stepped on the gas instead of the brake. And this guy coming out of the grocery store, he hit him so hard that he flew into the handicap sign and it split him. And next to him is a Mother's Day card that he was buying.

Yeah. And it's just like, you know, when it's your time to go, it's your time to go. There's nothing you can do about it. And there's no way to ever predict it or know when it is. And that is an accident. There was no malintent there. There was nothing. It was just an accident.

And here I am on Mother's Day in front of a grocery store and a crowd standing around. And I'm wiping his brains off from the grocery store wall on the outside and it's like it really makes you think you better do the best you can do in this life because your ass could be gone tomorrow that's the thing man it really is it'll make you think i'll tell you when you're when you're when you have a situation like that completely unpredictable this guy probably said hey i'm going to the grocery store to get a mother's day card i'll be right back and he never came back you never fucking know we've all heard so many stories or known people where that happened too and it's like why right but why why don't people wake up more like if you knew today was your last day

do better do better than you fucking did yesterday i think it comes back like you say why don't people wake up to that and say it's a great question because we see all the bickering and bitching and fighting we do in society over things that usually we have no control over and sometimes things it's like what are you even fighting about like just stop like yeah do your thing. They'll do their thing. But I'm not – I'm personally for myself not a fan of organized religion. However, I always say I think the majority of people overall across the different – pick out the main religions – get a of good from that and and utilize it in the right ways i think the minority of people who then use it to try to spew their power on stuff that's where it's like all right fuck you and that's also what's caused wars around the world forever so

i i always am careful to say that because i'm respectful of people who have it and i i grew up catholic you know i have my own relationship what's going on up there but i do wonder sometimes about okay if we're gonna evolve past the ills of some organized religions great i'm with that that's a good step forward it's almost though like we're in a little bit of no pun intended that purgatory of society right now where people a lot of people have evolved maybe from that mentality to where a lot of people getting out of it or moving away from that part of society are just not thinking about meaning at all and so we've lost in that process of like switching over we've lost a little bit of the

quest for meaning it's taken for granted right yeah exactly that's the day is taken for granted absolutely i don't know how to fix that but well like you mentioned before you know you were like god you're so calm you have a lot going on and i think it's because i accept the things that i just can't change. You know, it's one of those things that I'm not going to dwell on it. It could be my last day today. And I'm just not going to waste energy on bad shit. Good way to be.

I wasn't always like that. But this job has made me realize how short life is and you can spend it being mad being a dick or you can spend it finding the joy in in little things 100 but at the end of the day i mean that ferrari that rolex that shit isn't going with you. Like, it doesn't mean anything. But the impact that you have on other people's lives, that shit stays forever. Well, you've had an amazing impact on a lot of people. But I do think, you know, in a selfish way, I mean, as well, like, just like you just said, you have gotten a lot out of it. Oh, 100%.

Absolutely. That's an awesome thing. It's changed who I am. It's changed everything about me. And you have kids too, right? Yeah. I've got a son, a stepdaughter, and I've got another daughter on the way. As a matter of fact.

You have a daughter on the way right now? My partner's pregnant. Yeah. Oh my God. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. That's awesome.

Yeah. December baby. that's awesome yeah december baby that's awesome well that's exciting but i the reason i brought it up is because you can there's there's a lot of wisdom that not only can you pass on but not that you thought about this i'm just saying this as your kids get older you know I'm not saying a five-year-old should be watching your content. But when they're a little older, you can show them. Yes. And you're there. Like you're in the videos.

And you can be like, you know, this is – we're getting so worried about this thing. This is how quick it happens right here. You see this? And it's not to like fear-monger like look what it can be. It can just, you know, I think because of how respectful you guys are about it as this and it's not to like fear monger like look what it can be it can just you know i think because of how respectful you guys are about it as well it's helpful and like educational too but like it's a good perspective setter yeah i hope so you know um if i don't show them...

responsibility and to be, you know, a giving human being, then I failed as a parent. Because it's not about leaving them wealth or, you know, inheritance. And I actually don't believe in that at all. Yeah, I don't want to do that either. I'm with you. Yeah, I don't believe in it that either. I'm with you. and different different you know people just to embrace you know how lucky we are that is definitely that's a huge theme today from all the different topics you talked about and i think it you know i'm also like whenever i talk with people who are actually literally forced to do that as

well like in in the line of work you do for example it's like i love that you know i was telling you in this job it's kind of a benefit i get because i talked to all different people yeah i think that's like selfishly the greatest thing ever and so i wish like you know i talk with friends who have all different points of view and political beliefs and everything and sometimes when i'm talking to the people let's say politically extreme or not not even i don't have a ton of friends who are extreme to be honest with you but who are hardcore one way or the other i can never help but think when i get off the phone you know they haven't

really seen the other person they haven't really seen the other circumstance that, that has different priorities than theirs. And maybe if they were forced to, we could get along a little better, you know? Totally. Yeah. I feel, you know, as I've gotten older, unfortunately, I feel like we're more divisive than we are coming together and that's unfortunate it really is no content I don't like to even say content about what you do to be honest with you but putting out quality things for people to see mm-hmm that they can that that can put things in perspective in your case for them I think is a great public service to do so So I hope you guys keep doing it. Yeah, I appreciate it. I hope so too. You know, we were talking about the

YouTube algorithm and stuff and how that's changing. And I think we're going to end up putting our content on our own website. Oh, cool. Just behind a wall, crime scene, cleaning.com, crime scene, cleaning.com. And right now, just to be clear for people, and I'll put the links and make sure, Tony, if you're out there, there listen make sure i do this too because sometimes i forget this but i'll put the links to your different socials in the description as well but you are you're at crime scene cleaning correct spelling on tiktok youtube and instagram and instagram okay so all three same thing yeah put that on the screen as. And you're talking about doing it like your own subscription model on your website? Yeah.

That's interesting. Yeah, so basically, instead of going to Patreon, we'll have it on a wall on our thing, kind of a Netflix-type model, where we don't have to worry about the content. Do you have to – I don't know as much about Patreon. I have to learn that. But do you have to worry about i don't know as much about patreon i have to learn that but do you have to worry about that as much on patreon not at all there's no censorship so why don't you do it there because you pay you pay them a fee oh that's right yeah okay they take 20 something like that that's not horrible no it's not horrible but if we have the ability to do it on our page we might as well just do it people have been talking about that now for a few years

it's we haven't seen enough use cases yet but someone's got to do it a lot of creators are doing it so let's if you have good examples i'd love to see that yeah yeah tony has several that he's kind of modeling off of right now uh to put ours on so it's you know basically kind of like a it'll be like a netflix you can search terms like if you want to see just hoarding videos you can type in hoarding and only those videos will come that's cool yeah that's cool that might work really well for you yeah well it kind of goes along with our merchandise and the training courses and you know all that kind of crap keep it all in one place yeah you're probably going to expand this business to like not yours i'm saying like in general like there's more people who are now aware of even if it's not a job exactly like yours but

the types of things like what you do i hope so probably have a small supply yeah i hope so you know i met someone yesterday actually on an estimate and she's a brand new business she does what i do she's a brand new business and she was like oh i've been wanting to meet you and it was just happenstance that we met and i was like keep it up don't quit that's great yeah don't quit i said it's gonna get hard and it's gonna get harder and harder don't quit so it's um it's you know don't don't knock somebody down because they're your competition. That's good for you. It's good for you.

It keeps your business honest. That's a good way to look at it. Absolutely it is. Like the world would be a shitty place if we only had one grocery store, wouldn't it? Agreed. Yeah. I get lost sometimes. Like if you listen to, we've talked about it before, but the guy Peter Thiel wrote a book.

Yeah. Called Zero to One. Yeah. And he's like, I you listen to, we've talked about it before, but the guy Peter Thiel wrote a book called Zero to One. Yeah. And he's like, I believe fully in monopolies. And here's the thing. Like, he makes great arguments. But I'm like, yeah, I feel like that's not great for society, though. You know, like, that said, there's still a balance with it. Like, I think if there's competition in place that needs more supply like yours that's great yeah but he his example he uses is the extreme one like what

if you have eight korean restaurants in the same strip of a neighborhood in la do you really want to compete on like quality of food no so there's a balance to it but i see what you're saying because it's like that gives in the end if end, if there's people, to use your words, keeping you honest, then everyone gets the best type of service. Absolutely. And, you know, it's funny, because the government says, oh, we don't want to allow monopolies. But they sanction. I mean, they're approving. I have, my electric company, I don't have a choice.

There's only one. Yeah. Where I live. So it's like, choice. There's only one. Yeah. Where I live. So it's like, that's called a fucking monopoly. Yeah. Like, and you guys aren't doing anything about that, so. You deal with insurance, too. Yeah.

There you go. Exactly. It's the things that, like, are boring that people let go, but the things we're all on, like social media, that's where we put all the complaints, which is fine. Yeah. You know, we complain about some monopolies there, fine. Yeah.

But, like, there's a lot more than that yeah there's a lot of them well you can get a lot of dissension when you keyboard pirates you know it's easier to uh complain or otherwise behind you know the screen definitely true one other question that i had for you because it was on that vice video I watched which I'll also put the link to that in there because it's it's actually quick it's like six minutes I love vice they get a lot of shit these days I still love like a lot of their content their shit is really raw and original and I love it yes um but in there you talked about how now people like forget just the business and what it does like grow and get

followers on social media and how that affects the bottom line but a lot of people will tag you in things yeah and ask for your expertise yeah what is like what what kinds are they just is it usually just like a specific crime scene and they're asking like what you would do or you know it started out that way and that's funny that you bring that up because one comes to mind and it like it was at the beginning of tiktok and this woman um moved into a new house and there was a giant fucking spot on her hardwood floors and she's going live on tiktok and's like, what the fuck is this, guys? What is this? So everyone tagged me in it.

And we're like, please help her. Please help her. So I did a video. And I told her exactly what to do to see if it was human body fluid. And she did it. And it fucking was. So I was like, oh, shit. So I felt bad for her.

So I packaged up a Tyvek suit and some gloves and a mask because i figured she's gonna have to clean she's like in alaska she's gonna have to clean this up you don't have a franchise we don't we don't so i was like i'm i'm rooting for you here's how you do it so um now we get things like hey how do i get mold out of my grout? And that's fine. I'm happy to answer all that. But it started out much more nefarious than that. Oh, my God. It was funny. She should have gotten a free house out of that or something. Yeah, exactly.

I think she was renting it or buying it. I don't know. She just bought it or something. But I was like, holy shit, because she did it on camera. And she did what I told her to do. And I was like, oops. Yeah, that's a body. Oh, my God.

Yeah. But you're still getting a lot of that yeah we get quite a bit of it do you get a bunch of it from like specific true crime cases where they're asking no no it's all personal okay so um that's cool a lot of them hey i just moved into this house it smells weird how do i know if it's a meth lab so i'm like okay here's what you do for that and then you know some of this stuff like, you know, how do I get the rust stain out of my pots and pans? I'm like, I clean up crime scenes. I'm not a chef, you know?

I don't know how to do that. One, I'm sorry, I got to ask this. This is one more thing. The meth lab stuff? Yeah. How often are you cleaning up meth labs? Not often enough. Not often enough?

How many meth labs are there out there? Millions. Really? Yeah. That's one drug. I've never seen that drug in person. I've never seen like crystal meth in person. It looks like white and brown sugar mixed together.

You know the raw brown sugar? Yeah. With the white mixed together. So it's not fully brown or fully white it's like dirty and people usually melt it and smoke it or you can inject it smoke it snort it and it's nasty shit so you're cleaning up like walter white yeah trailers yeah do you remember breaking bad when they um teamed up with the pest control company yes that was fucking genius by the way it was that was pretty fucking genius so when he went into those

houses did you see how he set up containment in the house yeah that was him actually being conscientious because that cook would have fucked that house by him containing it the way he did it's only in that area so you deal fumes you deal with decontaminating all the walls got it everything because the fumes and those that can't be that hard to get caught if you're doing that to get caught yeah because like the fumes are going everywhere no you can cook it in your fucking garage in your attic and it just oh you're saying it just goes on the walls it doesn't yeah and through your air air ducts so if you say hey i only want to do it in here because i don't want my kids to get sick well you got the air on so it's going through your kids rooms right there it's like come on genius oh

my god meth labs in florida i'm going to cut it there because we'll be there all day i haven't even talked about florida today see danny i got through the episode without going after florida florida is an interesting place do you remember germany and florida with uh the love line dr drew and adam carolla no they had this contest people would call up with some crazy shit and they would have to guess did it happen in germany or florida they're saying everything crazy in the world happens in germany or flor. I'm telling you it was Florida 90% of the time. Germany is a different wavelength. Florida, man.

I call it the territory of Florida. I bring my passport to the airport when I go to Florida. You should. You want to check this? I live in the strip club portion if you're showing the map. My kind of part of the portion. Yeah. I don't blame you.

All right. We'll visit you when I'm down there next. But thank you so much for coming up here. Thanks for having me. Of course. I really enjoyed this. Everyone can check out your content on those links I provide below. It's at Crime Scene Cleaning on all socials.

It's great stuff. Like, I don't even care if you're not interested in true crime. Like, it's just interesting. So hope everyone does. And we'll do this again at some point. Thanks again. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is.

Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.