Locked In with Ian Bick - Cop Reveals What Happens When You Forget To Search A Suspect | Christopher Curtis

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Former Las Vegas Police Department Sergeant Christopher Curtis brings us through the realms of military discipline, law enforcement, and crisis intervention in this exciting episode. From boot camp tales to navigating the complexities of policing in Vegas, we explore the human connections and challenges that define these roles. Delve into the controversies of Las Vegas laws, the nuances of negotiation, and the power dynamics within law enforcement, culminating in a poignant analysis of the O.J. Simpson case and a call for systemic reform. Tune in as we share stories, lessons, and heartfelt gratitude in this compelling episode. Try Magic Mind: https://www.magicmind.com/lockedin And get up to 56% off your subscription for the next 10 days with my code: LOCKEDIN Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Sergeant Christopher Curtis: https://www.policeiq.com/bio Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction & Commemorative Badge 00:07:18 - Boot Camp Experience in the Marine Corps 00:14:29 - The Importance of Human-to-Human Connection in Law Enforcement 00:21:31 - The Realities of Being a Cop in Vegas 00:28:33 - The Controversy of LVPD Laws 00:35:56 - Attention to Detail in Business and Life 00:43:07 - Paying for Retirement and the Importance of Police Work 00:49:53 - The Power and Accountability of Police 00:56:34 - Policing and Stereotypes 01:04:10 - The Power and Responsibility of a Sergeant 01:11:33 - Connecting with People in Crisis 01:18:34 - Negotiating in Difficult Situations 01:26:11 - A Call for Crisis Intervention 01:33:30 - Analysis of the O.J. Simpson Case 01:40:27 - The Grey Area of Crime and Fixing the System 01:47:46 - Sharing Stories and Lessons 01:55:00 - Farewell and Gratitude Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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tells me his name and I put in the computer and my computer starts beeping Boop Boop Boop Boop Wanted by the FBI murder by burning He said I knew that was going to come up He said my dad pissed me off and I set him on and my house on fire He killed his father by setting the house on fire and burnt his father alive And I'm like wow so we were riding to the jail having this conversation I'm like listen and I was really connecting with this guy

Get him to the hospital then cuff put one cuff so they can stitch them up, they stitch them up, put them back in handcuffs, take them to CCDC for booking. They put him in CCDC and my boy is one of the COs and he goes, what the dumb? He starts freaking out. He's like, Chris, what did you do? And he comes out with this huge knife. Welcome back to the Locked in with the InBick podcast.

I have an extremely exciting episode for you today. former Las Vegas Police Department officer and hostage negotiator, Sergeant Christopher Curtis, is on the show to share his incredibly interesting and inspiring story and give us all the details involved in being with the Las Vegas Police Department. I need to give a huge shout out to Magic Mine. They have been hooking me up with shirts, with product. These Magic Mine energy shots are great. They're macha flavored. They are best served cold. I keep them stocked and fully loaded in the fridge at the studio. I pass them out to my guests when they come. And I tell all my friends, stop drinking the energy drinks and start taking magic mine.

Give them a try. I got a promo code in my bio for you guys to give it a try too at a discounted rate. Now sit back, relax, and get ready to lock in with Sergeant Christopher Curtis. All right. So let's get into it. Sergeant Christopher Curtis. Thank you so much for coming. And thank you for this amazing.

I have two gifts from you, plus the Vegas goodies. Yes. You know, I'm always surprised every time someone brings something for the studio, it just gets better and better. And I think this is definitely the latest top one, if you want to explain to the audience, what these are right here. So there were two things. Well, obviously the badge is like one of the most honored things in the police profession.

You know, we wear it over our heart. So when we have an opportunity to share a commemorative badge with someone that we think is doing something really cool. We do that. And so before I made it out here, I was able to snag you a commemorative badge from the police officer's supervisor association, a nice, hefty gold one that you can put in your desk.

And then I got you a challenge coin also from the union. And the story really quickly behind challenge coins is it's a military tradition. I used to be a Marine. And once a Marine, always Marine. And for this coin, you get it designed. And when you go to a bar, everyone from the different units pull out their challenge coin, put them on the bar. If you don't have your challenge coin or you're the last one to put it on the bar,

you have to buy the round of drinks. So I also gave you a challenge coin from Vegas. So you have some cool things. And shout out to my son-in-law, who is the general manager, MGM pool. He sent you some stuff too. So you have some real cool Vegas swag. That is so cool, man. Thank you.

And you also sent me a copy of your book. Yes. If you want to give a brief summary of this so we could plug it in here and we'll have a description for where people can purchase this book in the bio. Awesome. Thank you. So police IQ is the book. It's a book. I'm a reader and I'm about philosophy. So in policing, we have some really like cool things from a psychological perspective that we do and from a philosophical perspective that we do that make us different from everyone else. And so I was like, maybe I should write this in a format that I could share with civilians so they can apply it to their daily life. So as a, you know, throughout our conversation, we'll talk about some of those things. And I'll tell you a couple of them. And you can find them in the book and it can help you in your own life. And you can find it on Amazon, police IQ.com. You can just go to police IQ.com.

There's a link on Amazon. And we'll just talk about things. Because for me, it's more about like, it's nice to tell stories and laugh and joke. But I always want the opportunity to share something that I learned to maybe help someone else's life. Absolutely. Now, this whole concept of, you know, leaving law enforcement or even the military and talking about it on podcasts and books, how do people, that are in law enforcement feel about that, that aren't, where that's not the norm. Right.

Whereas we're in 2024 and that is very normal. It's true because, you know, it's like a fraternity. And sometimes I'll see stuff like I'll see people go on a podcast and I'm like, why? You know, you're giving away something that could potentially help a criminal get away. So like, you have to know just enough to tell, but leave some things to kind of protect, you know, the safety of officers or people as well. So to answer your question in the short, there are some cops who absolutely hate it. Would never come on a podcast. We'd never talk about those are our secrets.

And some people about my book, the same exact thing. They were like, Sarge, how can you, you know, share some of the stuff. But some things people are just going to learn anyway. And if it can help society as a whole, I think it makes us better. So that's why I did it. Yeah. And it's so interesting to hear that perspective because on that criminal perspective, I get guys that comment saying, oh, you're giving up the secrets in prison.

Yeah. The police know about it. They know about everything. The hiding spots, anything, anything that people talk about on this podcast, law enforcement, correctional officers is not privy to. So it's just funny to see those reactions. We know. Yeah.

It's just, it's a sight. You know, it's a mindset, I guess. Absolutely. So where did you grow up? Where are you from? I'm from Queens. Queens. Born and raised in Queens.

And then, you know, I started off in a really bad neighborhood. Then my parents moved us to a nicer neighborhood in Queens. shout out to Glen Oaks. And then my parents got divorced. One of the worst things that happened in my life. And I moved to Hollis with my grandparents. And then from Hollis, I moved to South Jamaica, right where 50 lived. And in the 80s, when I was coming up, it was really, really bad.

And at 17, I went in the Marine Corps. So that was probably the saving grace. Well, I didn't probably get caught up in a lot of that stuff. Did you use that as an escape from where you're growing up? The Marine Corps? Yeah. See, I was, I still to this day, Januflected to my dad. He passed away in 2017.

I can never, you know, tell you how important it is to have a strong father figure in your life. And so my dad was in the military. My dad was law enforcement. So I, for me, it was always to follow in what my dad, my first tattoo I got exactly where my dad got. I used to try to walk like him. Everything I want to do, I wanted to be like my dad. So the military was, it was an escape. It was a duel.

I wanted to be a Marine, and then it was also a scafranet because it was bad. Like, people were getting shot and robbed. I mean, it was like a daily occurrence. I mean, there were guys in my high school that were, you know, drug runners for the Supreme Team. Like, you would see, like, them running up on those elite scooters, like 10 of them, skipping class and coming and they were just selling dope. Yeah, Supreme Team is the ones that became famous.

And that was a very famous case. I think I read the book on one of them in prison, like one of the hood novels that they have. There's a few books about them. So that was all during your time period? That was during my time period. Wow. You went a total different direction. 100%.

I was a square. But I was a square that would punch you in the face. Like I was a square. Like I was like a rule follower, a do-gooder. Like I didn't smoke. I didn't drink. I was like straight edge to be like my dad. Like my dad drank.

But, you know, I always wanted to just be like him. And that's why when I dealt with people on the street, I would always see that that was almost always a key element. that there was no strong mail in their life. It was almost like a thread. Like you could put no mail in the life. So when you joined the Marines, what was that process like?

Where did you get sent to? It was tough. I went through the, so I don't know if you saw the movie Full Metal Jacket. No, I've heard of it. It's crazy. So full metal jacket is exactly what I went through in boot camp. The boot camp part because it was, I went to Paris Island,

third battalion, eye company, which is the most challenging one out of all of them, where they still would hit you. you and everything, you know, so they taught us this thing, right? When the drill instructors walk in the room, they would say discipline. And then you would have to say, D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E, discipline, sir, discipline is, the instant, willing, obedience, order, respect for authority, self-reliance, teamwork, stop, sir.

And you would have to stop wherever you were, however you were, whatever you were, whatever you were doing in that moment, and you would just see, like, people just frozen. And it gives me chills to think about, they were just, you know, you know, brainwashing us to understand what, what discipline meant. And you would see these guys, 45 guys, say that in unison. And no matter what they were doing, we would freeze. And the more that we went through boot camp, by the time it was just perfect sync. It was absolutely amazing.

And it taught me this level of, I can push through anything, which transitioned into my police world. Because if I was coming after you, I would get you. Do matter how long it would take, but I would get you. And still, you know, any time that I look at anything in my life that I would consider a misstep, it was because of lack of discipline. But to this day, I went to boot camp in 1987. And I can still remember that. I know how to spell it and I know how to do it because of what happened when I was in the Marine Corps. And you've also maintained you're in great shape.

You've probably maintained the same work ethic throughout all these years, starting from when you were in the boot camp. It is. And you know, but it's more than that. You know, when I train or I have daughters, right? and I have sons too, but I have daughters. And I train because in policing, you see how some women are victimized by people. And there should always be a male. And it should be their father who they could call at any time.

I could tell you right now, if that phone rings and my daughter is calling me and says, Dad, be here. I know physically, mentally, whatever, I will be able to get there. I keep myself financially set so that if I have to fly somewhere to get to protect my kid, I keep myself physically fit. So if a man tries to step to my daughter, they know they have to go through me. And I've trained them so that first off,

they're the first line of defense. That's why you see these situations that happen with these guys. And you see police intervention. But I'm like, where was the dad intervention? You know? So I went off on a little bit of a tangent about why I'm in shape. But I'm incredibly passionate about men being there for their kids, in particular men for their daughters.

But you see a lot of men in today's world not like that. when you line up, I don't know what the stats are, but a lot of men are not describing the way you are towards that. And I commend you for being that type of man. I humbly accept that and I thank you. But I mean, I've made missteps with my children as well. But I have a great relationship with all of them to the degree that we communicate on frequent basis. And I would, you know, when I train, if I'm running, I'm at mile six, mile seven, whatever.

I envision, this is cop. There was a kidnapping one time where this girl got kidnapped. And this wasn't a case that I worked, but there was an audio of her in the car calling for her dad while this guy had her kidnapped in the car. And she was calling. She's like, Daddy, you know, Daddy, come get me. Daddy, come get me. And it breaks my heart, you know, to think that that's who she was calling for. So, you know, I've been to hundreds of different horrific crime scenes.

And every cop will tell you that you think about if that was your family member. Like, that puts you in a difference. That's why you lock your door twice. That's why you check the windows. That's why you tell your kid to wear the seatbelt because you've seen all of that stuff. You know, there's an interesting thing I'll share with you, man. I hate pimp culture.

I can't stand pimp culture. I mean, I can't stand it. But I don't dislike necessarily the pimp because I try to separate the person from the act, right? interestingly enough in my book a pimp wrote the forward a really like one of the most prolific pimps in Vegas oh look him up ocean fleming his attorney was a good friend of mine and she connected us because we talked about the different psychologies of what we do and he knows how I feel about pimping and he's not necessarily against policing but he's we're on completely different sides so

if you read the forward you'll read what fleming ocean had to write about policing but I'll tell you right now that if a pimp was to approach one of my daughters, the first line of defense is what I taught them. They're going to shut them down. But the second line of defense is me. If her word wasn't enough

to make you step away from her, like if I'm at a mall and whatever, I go into the restroom and he approaches him what she said wasn't enough, I have no issue exacting violence on that person. And I say that on camera, there should be a man to protect your children. Yeah.

Now, if we had your kids here today, how would they describe you in their eyes? So do you, so you know, I'm going to tell you something funny. My oldest daughter, you're going to think I'm talking about little kids. My oldest daughter is 31 years old. Yeah. And then the one behind her is 29. And then the one, the youngest one is just started college.

So these are not little kids we're talking about. These are adults. But it's still my responsibility until I die to give them whatever I can, you know, to, you know, and policing has partially taught me that. That's why I want to share the police IQ things. Like I tell my kid, you know, like I have this thing that I can zone track on, right? Like so my daughter when she was little, she was like, my youngest daughter, she was like maybe four years old, five years old.

She barely was talking. She was maybe five or six. And we're sitting in the car and I'm like, I don't like to give out their names, but I'm calling her. And she says, she says, hold on, dad. I'm tracking this guy. We were in the parking lot sitting. My little kid, she was in the car seat.

And she says, hold on, Dad, I'm tracking this guy. And you don't want to make, like, robots. What, you know, if anything would happen to my, it would just, yeah. Absolutely. Do you see a direct difference between those and the police force that were military trained versus the ones that aren't that are fresh out of college? Absolutely. And I taught him the police, after I retired, I taught him the police cadet for a long time. When I first started teaching the police academy, I would say, how many Marines in there?

and you'd have to see how many military? Towards the end, there were almost none. Really? And I don't know that that necessarily even makes you a good cop because what I learned makes you really a good cop is being able to deal with people human to human. And like being able to be like, yo, that's Ian, right? Like you see cops all the time beating sparks off someone's behind, right?

Sir, put your hands behind, sir, put you... Have you ever heard someone say, Ian, put your hands behind? They don't say that because they haven't made that human-to-human connection, right? Tell you a trippy story. When I first got hired on, I was working, Graveyard. A call comes out. So SwingShift is still working. I'm working graveyard. This is downtown Fremont Street at night, like a little, like maybe around midnight, right? Crazy Foot Pursuit. They get the guy in custody. Swing shift gets the guy in custody. And the sergeant from

Swing shift calls me over to transport the guy, right? Because I was just coming out of the shoot, right? This was a swing shift gig. So I roll up and there's this dude and he has a big cut over his eye, right? And, but he's in custody and he's John Doeing. He won't. say who he is. So the sergeant asked me to transport him because the dude is black. The cops who had him were white. One was a senior FTO field training officer and his trainee, right? And so, and this guy, this senior FTO was about to go to SWAT. And everyone had like mad respect for this guy, right? But this dude is leaking and had him in custody, right? And the dude was pissed. The suspect was, he's like, man, he would do, do, do, so they asked me to transport him. So check this out,

what I told you about human to human interaction. right. So I was like, okay, I'll transport them. But I was new. And so I was, so as I switch out the cuffs, I switch out cuffs, right? I put my cuffs on. FTO takes his cuffs off. And what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to go through the whole procedure of researching and everything like that. And I'm like, listen, I'm not going to, you know, I felt like I was going to embarrass like this guy's senior guy. Like I don't trust his work, right? So I take the guy, put him in my car and the ambulance is there. And they say, he's not going to be. be able to be admitted, you got to take him to UMC.

That's one of the hospitals. You got to take him to UMC. They got to stitch that up. So we take him to the guy. I'm talking to the guy and he's still John, but I'm like connected with him. Like I turn out, I'm like, you know, want something to drink, listen, man. And he connected with me. He said, you know what?

I'm going to tell you my name. He tells me his name and I put in the computer. And my computer starts beeping. Boop, boop, boop. Wanted by the FBI murder by burning. He said, I knew that was going to come up. He said, my dad pissed me off. and I set him and my house on fire.

He killed his father by setting the house on fire and burnt his father alive. And I'm like, wow. So we were riding to the jail having this conversation. I'm like, listen, and I was really connecting with this guy. Get him to the hospital. They uncuff, put one cuff so they can stitch him up. They stitch him up. Put them back in handcuffs.

Take them to CCDC for booking. They put him in CCDC. And my boy is one of the COs. And he goes, what do? He starts freaking out. He's like, he's like, Chris, what did you do? And he comes out with this huge knife that the guy had on him the entire time.

Mind you, I'm right here when they're uncomfortable one hand. All the COs freak out. You bring a prisoner in and they have something on them, the CEOs are pissed at you, right? Because they don't have any weapons. Pepper spray, whatever. They can't deal with a knife. I see the dude.

And after that, and I'm like shaking my head because I'm embarrassed. he said embarrassment is one thing but I could have killed you if you aren't respectful to me I was going to do you in the hospital wow I still have his picture his his his his his his mugshot because back then when you book I used to keep all that's why you on my the front of my book I know it doesn't look like me but those are the first 100 people that I read in fact his pictures in the book I'll show it to you the first one it's a mosaic I keep his picture and I always remembered that none of these tools saved me from being killed that day because he that was one of

those ramble nights he could easily shank me and I got stabbed before my life when I was in the Marine Corps it's not fun but that dude could have absolutely killed me it was me being personable and connecting with him that saved my life that day a lot of people in law enforcement can learn from that too it is I used to I tell that story in the police academy when I was when I was teaching in the police academy yeah I mean even correctional officers because they're not there's no personable like that I mean, when you go to prison, it's your last name only. So I'll teach you something about policing. There's some interesting dynamics.

So like a lot of people ask me, why did you go to Vegas when you're from New York, right? So geographically, policing is very different, right? There's an East Coast model. There's a West Coast model of policing. And it's more merging now that tactics are different. When I first hired on, NYPD was a respected department, but they were like still carrying 38s. They're not a very tactical. And even to this day,

They're not super tactical, right? Then you have the West Coast model where they're highly tactical, very polished, but they're not very versed at engaging with people. Like, you get a New York City cop. That's why NYPD was the first that really started kind of fine-tuning hostage negotiation. That's why LAPD was the first to really fine-tuned SWAT training. I was a hostage negotiator when I was on the department. So NYPD was talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

LAPD was we can go tactical and be really good at being tactical about it. Vegas was the best PD in my opinion because we did, we merged both of those models. The NYPD model and the LAPD model. And like I, LAPD was a cool department. But to me, Vegas is like these tan uniforms. I mean, you got the strip. You got all of these special events. I mean, I went on a ride along.

I was in a Marine car. I flew up and I did a ride along, right? And I just saw the respect that people have for police in Vegas. And it was still old school. I mean, I was done. I got out of Marine Corps, bang. How long did you do in the Marines? Five years.

Five years. Yeah, I was on embassy duty for almost my entire tour. I did a year in Belgrade. That's where I got stabbed by a Serb. Collapse lung. Chest tube, one of the most painful things you can have. Then I went to Caracas van as well. They had the coup when I was there.

I was supposed to be like, my fun post. I just did two plus years there. I went back to battalion. The Marines got in trouble in Paraguay. The battalion commander asked me to go back to Paraguay, go down to Paraguay, and helped them get the embassy while I was waiting to go to Police Academy. And then I went to the police academy. So you experienced a lot of action, a lot of, wow, that's a whole other story in itself and the Marines. Oh, yeah. That was wild. Wow, wow. Are you ever going to write like a book about your time in the Marines? The hard thing about writing the, it would have to be about a specific discipline because the stuff on embassy duty I can't really talk about because, you know, a lot of

that state department stuff, you have to sign documentation that you want, it's, you know, you have it required to have a top secret clearance and there's a lot of things. So I mean, it could be fun to talk about some elements of it, but there's some stuff that I just absolutely wouldn't be able to talk about. When that whole news of the embassy attack came out in like 2011, did that kind of hit home for you? Whenever there's anything that has to do with an embassy, I have a close connection to it. Like, to me, if I was to go back and ever do life again, I would always want to be involved in the State Department

because I like to travel. I like culture. I speak different languages, and I encourage other people to do that as well. You've got to be a passport, bro. Yeah. There's a lot of movies on embassy attacks, and there's a one with, what's his name? That famous actor, I forgot.

There was a great one, and then there was a one with the 24 hours or 13 hours. I don't know a lot of movies. Oh, you don't watch movies like that. Not really, because when you know what it's really like and you see, like, I watch something, I'm like, that's definitely not real. But it's got, there's a realism that has to be to it that, you know, that, you know, hostage, especially when it comes to these hostage negotiation things. Like, I can tell, like, it's TV. But there's some good cop shows.

Like, the wire, they did a phenomenal job on the wire. How do you feel about, like, shows like the rookie modern day cop shows? Some of them are good. I mean, they're kind of fun. But, again, it's, they kind of Hollywood. up to and for a real cop like you like I'll give you an example so do you know what indexing is when you hold a firearm no so indexing is when you extend your finger outside of the trigger guard right look at any TV show any movie you'll constantly see them the cop with their finger on the trigger

if you do that in real policing if you have your finger on the trigger while you're clearing you will get it because I mean that's how there's no such thing they say it was an accidental discharge like we don't say that we say negligent discharge In fact, I'm going to, I'll tell you a story about a negligent, negligent discharge. So if I, if I don't even see a person, a cop indexing on the, on the firearm, I'm like, this isn't even, like, it just drives us crazy. That's probably because those are fake guns, though, so they don't have to worry about anything, right? Right, but we don't, we would never, ever do that.

Like, you train so that you don't do that because you can, and someone can be killed. Like, one night I'm working swing shift, right? I don't have a trainee And it's in this area It's called it's Frank too But it's up towards the mountains Like the desert area of the mountains of Vegas A whole bunch of trailer parks

A whole bunch of meth and everything The call comes out These brothers are freaking out Because they said they drove by a convenience store And their brother got shot So I'm clear I'm not far I pull up and these two brothers

Are like on the curb Whaling crying Welling my brother's in my brother I go to the car and I look, I open, go to the door and I look inside and I see that this, in the passenger seat, is this like big, massive dude and it's like all this like, like punk rock looking hair forward. And it's just a, his face is mush. He was shot in the back of his head.

And the brothers are completely freaking out. So I'm like looking at this and I'm like, this doesn't really kind of make sense because like the bullet wound is in the back of his head. So I take one of the brothers and I put him inside my car and I'm kind of fast forwarding this to get to the chase. And I'm like, I know accidents happen, right? I said this to him and he says, he starts to cry. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to. They're playing with the gun in the back of the car and the brother negligently pulls the trigger and shoots his brother in the back of the head.

Holy shit. And then he, so he has to deal with the fallout of killing his brother, telling his other brother to make up this lie. And they're sitting there watching their younger, there was their youngest brother dead in the car. There's so many these playing with gun stories I could tell you about. We had AAA baseball team in Vegas. Since I speak Spanish, they call me to translate. I walk in, these got this pitcher, I'm not going to say his name,

who had, it was a long time ago. He was recovering from Tommy John. They bring some girls back to their place to party. He has a gun collection and pulls a trigger. I don't like to point to my own head, but inside one side of her temple, outside of the other side of her temple. And I walked in and she was like maybe 20 years old. And she had her eyes open and blood just all over her face. And I'm having to translate because these guys are all Dominican.

And his life was just completely ruined. Not to mention what it did to her family. Like that's why, like, and then you have to go to the next call, right? You go to the next call. And you're, you know, at that time I was a young kid. Like, how do you train for that? And then people wonder why it said, you know, like my kids, I'm like, if you go to a party, you whatever, don't let if someone pulls out of it, you know, don't play with it. So, you know, it's just the whole gun thing.

Yeah, even weapons in general, you hear like during sex people playing with knives. And there was a one case recently in the U.S. with like a bow and arrow. Someone got, a kid got killed, like just all these crazy things because they're playing with dangerous weapons and using it. Like, whose idea was it to like use a gun during sex or use a knife? Like how does this come out? And there's so many freak. At Hyundai of Glendale, Lisa New, 2026 Hyundai-Tusan-S-C front-wheel drive for 269 a month plus tax for 36 months. With owner's assurance in America's best warranty, 10-year, 100,000 miles. Stop by Hyundai of Glendale today or Hyundaiof-Glindale.com.

36-month lease, 4,499 to its signing. Tax-tile license and dock fees extra, plus government fees and taxes. 7,500 miles per year, expires 6126. Who available at this payment? PH 715229. Ph.7156. accidents and people lose their lives. The craziest things that people do behind closed doors,

which I mean, I don't judge people as long as you're not hurting anybody else. But I've seen some things. I can only imagine. In Vegas. Yeah. In Vegas. And the other thing in Vegas is that we have all the, you know,

the trick rolls and the prostitution. So I can't tell you how many times I walked into like finding or security calls for a dead body. Some guy goes to a bachelor party or goes to a bachelor party or he's part. You know, he gets a weekend off. He's at a convention. He gets a hooker and day party. He overdoses and then his family has to find out. You know, one of the first dead bodies I found was this middle-aged guy.

And he parties with this hooker. He's coked out of his mind. His heart pops. He's butt naked on the bed, walk in. And he's got his picture of his family on the nightstand. Like, you know, because he's not to say he's not a good dad, right? But he wants to have this crazy party. But then I find him with his little peepy in his.

This belly popped out, you know, because he wants to party with these crazy Vegas hookers. And I'm sure you got the people that get, like, scammed by the hookers that call. So I have a question about Vegas. Is that legal? Like that. Yeah. It's not. People think that in Vegas, and it's legal.

Vegas is in Clark County. Interesting thing about Vegas. So Vegas and Clark County, prostitution is not legal. In Nye County just north, it's, it's legal. So that's why they, that's where they have the brothels. So what I don't know, you know, a lot of people are, you can drive 45 minutes. north of Vegas and you can go to one of the brothels legally. And, you know, it's been the law there for, I don't know, easily, hundreds of, 100 years.

So it's, but in Vegas, it's illegal. No, the idea of prostitution in general, where is the crime committed? Like, if you're a man and you're calling, is the crime committed when you hand over money or is a crime committed from the female? How does that work? So there's, so for females, right? Well, and it's not only females because there are males who do this as well. Loitering for the purpose is a prostitution and then solicitation of prostitution, which are two different charges.

That's when you agree to make a money financial transaction for a sexual act. Loitering is when you're loitering outside or somewhere for the purpose of creating that prostitution act. So how are these websites and stuff just so readily available? Well, because the money is just so good that. You know, and there are so many degrees that you have to go through. I mean, I had a lot of my cop buddies who worked vice. And, you know, back then, you know, they get to grow the hair out and they get to drive whatever car they want.

And they get to go and see these girls and stuff like that. And it's a misdemeanor charge, right? So, but it's a good gig. They get 8%. They get to, you know, have these cool clothes. They get to, you know, this cool car and get to live this Miami-Vegas lifestyle. So to answer your question, what, I mean, just the volume, the sheer volume, I mean, people always going to want sex, right? And if you, and just think it's the entertainment capital of the world.

You know, they say New York is the city that doesn't sleep. Well, New York kind of sleeps some when it comes to Vegas. When I was working graveyard on Vegas, it was surreal because with all of the lights of the casinos and it'd be 90-something degrees at midnight, it felt like it was daytime. And you just see all this vice on the street. like just tons of just prostitution and crack because crack was really, really big, you know, first startup police. It's not as big as it was back in the 90s,

you know, early 2000s. But the sheer volume is why, because people are always going to want sex and you could put so many degrees of separation between yourself and, you know, I mean, how many vice cops can you have? Yeah. But then only fans is legal and that's still paying in a way,

even though it's digital. Right, but it's, different because you're not physically touching the person. Yeah. It's such a strange, like everything, just surrounding that. You know, the moral part of it is something that I'm not going to debate with anyone, but what I'll say is that it's weird to me that two people go and meet in a nightclub. He buys her, you know, two or three drinks and they go have sex.

But it becomes a crime if she just says, give me the money up front. run and let's go do it, right? Which I find weird. Yeah, that's the strange part about it. Yeah, well, that's what it is. So why Vegas? I know you said you did the ride along, but how do you even happen to stumble upon it? So it's interesting.

There was an economics officer at the embassy in Caracas, in Caracas, Venezuela. And he knew I wanted to be a cop. And he said the economy in Vegas is going to explode in the 90s. he said go test there and and I tested and I got it and in the economy as I remember there's no state tax um financially I mean just I and and I had my VA no you know dollar down by a house and it just financially it was just awesome and then I was able to make a couple of you know financial purchase you know real estate purchases I mean it was just it worked out really really well for me and then you know a cop in Vegas

you know, you're in your early 40s and you have a six-figure retirement for the rest of your life. Really? Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. You went from New York to Vegas to Miami or to Florida. Yes. That's incredible.

Because I'm a beach guy. Yeah, you just said you were on the beach yesterday. We're out here, freezing our asses off. I was going to take a video of the snow. Yeah, well, I thought we were done with snow because it's been a light winter the last couple of years. No, there was snow. Yeah, there was snow today. But it was in the 60s last week.

and now it's freezing again. It's really unbelievable. So you get to Vegas, you go through the training, you get hired. How long does it take you to move up to any type of rank in Vegas? Good question.

So, and it's a little bit controversial with me. So to become a sergeant, I think it's five years. But I waited 15 years. 15? I waited 15 years. Because to me, it's not like, you know, wanting to just go,

like, you have people who, become cops and it's they just jump up the ranks like to me I'm a street cop at my core I'm a street cop I never wanted to be more than as a sergeant because it's a sergeant you can still be on the street like if that wasn't had a nickname it would be street like I loved like I was a kind of cop like when I would get dressed it was like ritualistic right I would get make sure that my boot I would put rubber bands around my keys to make sure that I was silent I would jump to make sure like if I if I was coming for you like you wouldn't even know like I would be right up on you when I would get into my patrol car I would have my shotgun in a certain place

and I would practice hitting the trunk release, getting out of the car, rolling behind cover. When I had my squad, before we would hit the street, we would go and create a formation and we would breach every single door inside the station. And we would do it in sync. And that was every single shift.

So for me, you know, when you talk about like going up rank, like I know there's cops now on all departments where they've spent like a year or two on the street. Like, they don't know anything about policing. Right now, you could put me in the black and white, and I could find crime and I could stop a person. I would be tactical about it. I still, like, sometimes I'll see a car that's suspicious and I'll go to put the plate

in my, in my regular car. Like, at a force of habit, I'll be like, oh, shoot, I'm not a car. Oh, but you don't actually have, like, a computer. I don't have a computer in my car. I'll just go like, I'm like, it's like Pavlovia. I've always been curious. How distracting is that computer when you're driving in a cruiser? It's not.

It's actually, because once you get good, like, you don't even have to really. like you know which where the keys are for the plates you know but but the other thing is when when I first started on graveyard and this is you know tie into the book a little bit um I would I would just love to get in pursuits so like I worked the area that had a lot of um stolen cars so that I would sometimes pull up behind the car and I would run the plate it didn't come back stolen but that didn't that just means it wasn't reported stolen right so I would turn on the lights and if they didn't run I would just turn the lights on and let them go.

That's so scary to the person. Maybe, but that was the immaturity of just always wanting to be like in the most of adrenaline. Like that, it's an adrenaline thing. Like so for me, adrenaline is huge.

But there's a cop saying that says, take care of the misdemeanors and the felonies will take care of themselves. So that philosophy is what made me realize I was just being a complete immature idiot doing that because what happens is, remember, the car just wasn't reported stolen. And just because I turned on the lights and they didn't run, doesn't mean the car wasn't stolen. Find the misdemeanor

car stop. And if you dig hard enough, a lot of times you'll find a felony. So take care of the misdemeanors and the felonies will take care of themselves. Even in your business or whatever it is that you do in life, if you take care of the little things, the bigger things end up working themselves out. You know, I told you I'm being into philosophy. And one of my favorite philosophers, Epicetus, he said, I discovered this. The Secret of the Sea in meditation upon the dewdrop. You take care of little things. And I don't know you, right?

Like, I've watched your podcast. I've heard you speak, and I think you have a really high business acumen. But I'm sure that you look at little things. There are little things that you key in on that other people don't, which make you successful. It's all about the little details. Correct. I think to apply that to my business, I have the studio business on the side with clients, and I'm very responsive and very quick turnaround times.

That's a little thing that these other major companies aren't necessarily thinking about. And then even like with mine taking over the editing and doing all that and the filming, that's a little minuscule thing when you look at the bigger picture. But it's everything. It's what makes it different. It provides comfort for the guests that there's not a big team here. There's just so many things. And I can catch things that other people couldn't possibly catch. That's why police care about marijuana.

Police don't care about marijuana. Police care about being able to look inside your car. Police people want to be able to see people like I watch these videos and like people don't even understand the most basic things about law. There are three basic laws that everyone should understand. Wren versus U.S., Terry versus Ohio, Graham versus Connor. They're in my book. But those are the three basic laws that every human should understand. One is about the police use of force. The other is about pretextual stops and the other one is about reasonable suspicion, which everyone says, well, what's your probable cause for stopping? What's your probable cause? You don't need probable cause to stop a person. You just need reasonable suspicion. And if you can articulate reasonable suspicion, then you can stop a person. So people get themselves caught up in nonsense. And that's why give someone the basic understanding of what their rights are. And we would have a much different and a much safer world.

Interesting. Yeah. I never looked at it that way, like with the three different laws and you focus in on that. Just focusing on those three. And of cops who most just have a basic high school education know and understand them to that degree. Same exact thing. I got into two shootings. and I was a sergeant on nine shootings.

I've tased a whole bunch of people. I learned the laws about all these things before I didn't. The guy that I shot, one of my buddies calls me, he says, this mom is taking her kids to go to these stores. She makes a whole bunch of commotion and then has the kids deal and then they go. He had a warrant for the son. We go into this apartment community and it was a blood. there was a whole bunch of blood.

See, Vegas gangs is, you know, a little bit different than a lot of places, but this place was all bloods. And sure enough, we go and he said, that's the sun right there. I think that's the sun. And he's got these red cargo pants, shorts on, white tank top, black sneakers, red laces. He goes up, and so we have this thing. I'm not going to get into all the tactics of it, but when two officers can interact with the person, one person is to talk or the other person is just to watch them. the small, the micro, the details, right?

So my boy, the cop is talking to this guy and he's got some size to him and everything. So I got myself off the side and look, on his cargo pocket, there's an outline of a gun. So I go like this to my part and I go, because our code for a gun is 413, so I go for it. And he's like, so, and the dude is getting real agitated. So I just make the choice.

I'm like, I go and I just grab onto the gun. and I feel it. And this guy pulls away from me and he just reaches his hand in the pocket and takes off foot pursuit. We got to talk about foot pursuits. I'm chasing him and he's in his pocket with this thing.

And this was during swing shift. And so there were a lot of people outside. And I'm like, and I have my gun out. I'm like, do not pull that gun out of your pocket. Do not pull that gun. I'm screaming, do not pull the gun on to tell you. And he turned around and pulled the gun out of his pocket. Light him up.

He does somersault, gun. flies onto the floor and he's like you shot me you shot me so he's he's still alive and all the people come out and a guy comes out to record and i'm saying because they were pissed they didn't like the and i'm like record the gun because i was scared someone's going to take the gun and my my my partner was like running behind his radio had fallen off and the guy's mom that i got that shot his mom came out she was one of the first people outside she's screaming that her son is shot her son is shot and um um um We call a, what's called a 444. And then every cop and their mom, you know, comes to the scene and shows up.

He ends up living. The gun turns out to be a pellet gun, replica pellet gun. Turns into this huge media thing. I didn't feel one bit saddened by the fact that it wasn't a legit. I mean, if you want to say legit, to me it was, you know, you're pulling out that while I'm running after you. You're going to get shot. But the way that it was framed afterwards, right? You start to think.

But you know what I felt. I felt compassion because that guy ended up in prison multiple times because I kind of followed his life for a little bit. Never had a father figure in his life. Never ever had a father figure in his life. And he ends up in that type of situation. And then I end up in that type of situation. So does that make you think that it all starts in the childhood?

Like when you look at the deeper philosophy of it? 100%. 100%. if I, you know, if I get emotional about anything, it's about or feel guilt about anything in life, it's times where I have not been the best father or where I've treated another human being poorly. In fact, in my book, I extend an apology to anyone who I ever interacted with that I didn't treat them with the degree of dignity and respect that they deserved. But mind you, I'm still that person that's capable. of punching you in the face if you are disrespectful to me.

And I'm working on that. I'm really, really working on that. I got a really incredible deal when I retired. I was able to retire earlier. It was a guy who heard about some innovative policing things that I was doing. You never heard of the company Zappos? It was a shoe company. Yeah, I used to buy shoes from Zopp.

Are they still around? Yeah, they are. Well, the guy who was the CEO of that company, it was a guy named Tony Shea. He was a billionaire before he was even 40 years old. He went to Vegas, and he was revitalizing downtown Vegas, and he heard about me. And he wanted to hire me to help him with that, with the project, right?

Because he knew I was doing some innovative things. I said, I'm not old enough to retire. He's like, is there any way we could get you to retire early? I said, you could buy out five years of my time. I knew it was a significant six-figure number. He's like, what's a number? I said, I'll get you the exact number. I got him the exact number.

And he wrote a check. He bought you out of the last five? He bought the five years out for me. So this is a dude from, I'm a dude from Queens. I didn't even finish college, bought out my time. So mind you, as I collect retirement now, I'm still getting paid. And then they paid me a six-figure salary at the company I was working for. So I was getting that six and the six working with him and whatever else I was doing.

Do you still work with him? No, he died. Oh, wow. He died. And that's when you left? No, no. I actually left. I left maybe two years before.

And I just started doing it. I was teaching in the police academy and doing some other, you know, real estate. state type things. So you could still teach in the police academy even though you're retired? Oh yeah. In fact, not only that, excuse me, but like speaking engagements or people who want to learn about certain elements. Like, or, you know, when I first, then I told you,

I did the security plan, right? The security plans for these dispensaries or whatever else. I mean, there's a ton of different gigs you could do if you have certain, you know, types of training or just going and explaining things to people about life and capitalizing just like what you do. How many years did you serve in the

police force? 21. 21. You, to retire, you needed 26? Well, no, it would have been 25. You can do 25 or you could do 30. You can even do 20, but the money's not as good. So I wanted the 25. So I ended up with 26. Okay, because he paid for those other five.

He paid for those other five years. Wow. I didn't know you could pay your way out of that. You could pay your way out. Still, to this day, you could do that? Yeah, there are people. In every state? I don't know if every state can do it.

Yeah, you just buy into the state retirement. Yeah. You buy yourself for. But you're giving out, you're giving up. I wonder if it's worth it monetarily. Like if you have, if you have, if you have, You paid for the money yourself? I can tell you how the equation is.

Okay. How much can you put value on the time that you have to be retired? That's what you have to look at, right? So I know that, you know, I have no debt. And so, and I still have a relatively healthy body. And so how do you put a price on that? You know, I think about corrections officers, man. If you think a correction officer that does 25 years,

how much of his life has he or she has spent inside a prison? more than an inmate would. Yeah, more than an inmate. It live in that energy. And cops, the same thing. Like, you walk into work, right? And you're like, okay, give me a conflict. Okay, I'm done with that conflict.

Give me another conflict. Give me another conflict. Okay, some more conflict. And then you go home and then you got to other conflicts that you have to deal with in your own life. I mean, I believe that the retirement system is really important because I don't know that the human spirit is meant to deal with conflict to that degree. if people would love or seek to understand policing more than bash it, you could gain so much knowledge because police have, I think, one of the highest levels of understanding when it comes to the human experience. I mean, we're intimately involved in people's lives to the degree that no one else really is.

It's a phenomenal experience. I mean, people give a lot of flack to correctional officers, but they got a tough job because think about it. The average person who has a job, they can have their cell phone out. They can stop and go wherever for lunch. Like if you're working as an officer, a police officer, you could say, hey, I'm going to this place for lunch. In a prison, you can't do that. You're working your whole shift. I think that they're, one is, I think that they're, when I would have guys who were COs before and we would become cops, they were usually the best.

Like you would say military, they were okay. Because I was an FTO for a long time. the COs were usually the best because they know how to talk to people. Like they know how to enter, usually they know how to interact with a person and they're not afraid to, you know, interact with people that could be potentially dangerous. I mean, some of the dangerous people that I, some of the people I dealt with were like incredibly dangerous people. And, you know, the other thing is when it comes down to it, they were really good at getting information out of people. They were really, really like when I would have a trainee that was a CEO before, they were really good about getting information out of people. And I've seen a lot of people in this chair

And they talk about snitching And I'm a stand-up guy and all this I'm like, stop that boy Everyone's done it Everyone's, you know And let's see they don't You know what pisses me off about it is this You know, let's talk about snitching, right?

Let's talk about snitching Because I got some snitching stories for you, okay? Here's the deal. Dry snitching all the time I would get a guy who would be three-time X-Fro And the toughest guy on the block He's about to get violated I have him in the back of my car

he's like, hey, I'm not saying that, but you know, that window up there, that one up there. I mean, listen, anyway, I'm not saying that window right up there. All the time, I would get that, right? But see, here's my thought on snitching, right? Who are the best? Who has the most tight-lipped? Who is the most tight-lipped people that don't tell? Lips of the statue.

Who are the most? The mafia guys or not even, no. Kids who are violated by adults sexually and women who are domestic violence. they have the tightest lips. So when you promote this no snitching culture, you're promoting those kids not saying anything. And guess what? And then you'll get these tough guys that stood up here.

Well, we'll take care of them when they're in prison. Well, guess what? The cop did the first part of the job because he would have never ended up in prison if the cop didn't do the first part of a job. And if this street culture was so good, then we wouldn't have to deal with it in the first place. It would have been handled, right?

It's ridiculous when I see these people who come on and listen, they could be nice guys. And I'm not trying to start any crap with anybody. I'm a very good life. But stop already. Don't tell me about what kind of paperwork unless it's dad paperwork. Like, show me how good of a dad you are. Because if you make a commitment to the street and you have children, what are you saying?

Because the commitment to the street is saying this. The commitment to the street is saying that I am never going to tell on my friends. But guess what? That means at some point you are going to get caught. You're not going to tell your friends and you're going to abandon your child for someone else to raise them. So then I'll go one step further. Then make a different choice in life and not choose the street life. Not choose to beat this.

You know what? You know, I'll tell you an interesting story. One time I went to one of those parent father things where to get to go to your parents. No, where the parents get to come in and see their kids at school. And all the parents come in the parents, you know, I went in uniform. Like you go. Oh, like a show and tell for your job fair type thing. Right, right.

So I went, it was one of the first ones that I had been to. So my kid was probably in like sixth grade. So I missed a whole bunch of them, right? And it was this one, and I'm like thinking I'm the man, right? Because I'm the cop dude that walks in there. There was this one kid whose dad was a landscaper. And the little boy says to me, he goes, and his dad was in his landscaper thing.

He was just with his dad all proud, with his dad landscaper dude. And his little boy says to me, he says, oh, this is the first time I've ever seen you here. And his dad was like, yeah, we're here together all the time. This man was a proud landscaper who showed up to his kids thing And me thinking I'm Mr. Cool Cop I had only shown up once and I'm sure I could have shown up more times

What's wrong with being a landscaper? You know, you want to have all the good shoes and all you know And choose a different life. Then you don't have to worry about not snitching. You know, I don't have to worry about not stitching Because I'm not committing any crimes. Yeah. The two people I just told you about two groups of people

Who have the lips of the statue, the kids who are being touched by those And women who are being beaten. So if you want to promote that, then good. Continue to promote that. and we'll be at odds. The whole concept is just so silly. It's ridiculous.

And I also feel like there's a huge difference between snitching on someone that's been your friend or family member for decades versus someone that you were just involved with or just met. And a lot of the times that's not even the case that you were friendly with that person for all those years. So the snitching point is even mute too. It's a mentality that bullies use. so that they continue to pray on other people. That's exactly what that is. You know, don't do anything around me. If you're going to do something wrong,

don't do anything around me. And funny, that's, you know, and it's funny because that was how police culture was. When I first hired under the apartment, that was Rodney King time, right? It was like a free-for-all. Like the cops would do, there was a squad. There was a, they called them the Black Glove squad.

It was a sister squad of mine. And there will be a, so you'll hear the radio traffic. Control, d-da-da-foot, eastbound, in custody. and then everyone would be like, roll medical. If the person didn't, if the cop didn't say roll medical,

when they were in the locker room, they would give them a hard time. Why is that? Because they were expected to lump the thump on the person if they ran. They'd be like, why didn't you say,

why didn't we hear roll medical? These were some senior guys. I mean, when I first hired on this, that was the culture. Then the culture became, if you're going to do something stupid, don't do it around me. And now, thankfully, the culture is,

cops are like, if you do it, I'm telling on you. It's evolved into something that's completely different. They're holding people accountable. They're holding people accountable as they should. The policing has a huge, you have no idea how much power. A street cop, a traffic cop has an insane amount of power, and people don't realize it. They can take away your freedom. And police become apathetic to that fact that you literally take away someone's freedom.

You tell us a grown adult to stop walking. You go inside someone's home. I mean, police, and when I used to teach in the academy, I used to tell him, like, you got to show reverence to, you know, a person's being, like, their existence, their home. My youngest daughter, there was a medical situation with her where she was having an issue, she was eating some baby food or something like that. And her mom called the ambulance, and the police showed up because it was that type of thing. So they immediately found it.

And when I was, I showed up because I was work, but I showed up. and the cop was like looking like inside picking up the pictures and looking at pictures. I'm like, bro, let me write you up in here, you know, look at pictures. Like, you forgot that you got to show reverence for someone else's home. I'll give you an example. This is a little bit of a test for you right now. We're going to do this. Okay.

I pulled you over. Sergeant Curtis, Las Vegas, Michigan, Michigan, the police department, the reason I pulled you over is you were speeding. I'd like to see a license registration proof of insurance. How did I do? You introduced yourself, so it created a little bit of... Don't think through it too much. Give me a...

Give me A, B, C. A, B. C? Yeah. I would give it maybe a B. Okay. I would give it in the middle. So now you were at Black Angus. Your server comes up to you.

Hi, I'm Christopher Curtis. I'm here to serve you your food. We have two specials, and we have two drink specials as well. What would you like? What would you rate me, A, B, or C? I'm your server. it. Just the way he said it, I don't know.

See, I wasn't. So I said it the same way as I said it as a cop, right? Yeah, I guess. So why do you have a higher standard for your server than you do for a person who could take your freedom in life? Well, because I'm used to being served by the server, whereas I'm not used to getting pulled over by the cop. But shouldn't the police have an even higher standard of respect? I'll give it to you differently. How you doing today, sir?

My name is Sergeant Curtis. I'm with the Las Vegas Metro and Police Department. I know this probably sucks that I'm pulling you over right now, but I just want to explain to you what we've had going on in this area is that we've had a little kid almost get hit by a truck, their mom called in, and so we're running a special detail. If you give me your license registration insurance,

I'll get you out here as quickly as I possibly can. That's an A. Why is that not the standard? That's what you would expect from your server, right? So I would tell cops that because I'm going to tell you. Because sometimes the culture before was that I'm here to save your ass, not kiss it. That's what cops you say. I'm here to save your ass, not kiss it.

got to change that, right? And don't mind you, I've made the mistake myself because we have this thing in policing. Ask tell, make. Ask, you ask them to do it. They don't do it. You tell them to do it. They don't do it.

You make them do it. Which is different from what the core of what policing really is. The father of modern day policing is a guy named Sir Robert Peel in 1829. In London, he created the Metropolitan Police Force. Under that auspices of the Metropolitan Police Force, they created what's called the Nine Peelian Principles.

I actually brought a copy of them for you. Okay. And all of these principles are about what policing is really about. And it's about, you know what, you know, that's why police where they're, that's what they call Bobby's. You know, ever heard the police are called Bobby's in England? You know, they taught us this in school. I think it was a lesson in some, the history of, like, policing. And why they wear red, why they wear blue and not red.

Because policing back then was all about being community driven and being, like, respectfully driven as opposed to where it became very much more. militaristic. Here's the problem, though, it's not consistent. If we went to Danbury, the town over, which is where I'm from, and if I got pulled over by, we'll say five different cops from the police department, I guarantee you, each one is going to have a different response in the way you just described. And then that's not even counting whether they know me or not, and if it's an older cop that knows my history or whatever, whatever the case is. And then you compare them to someone of a different race or a different ethnicity. And you show every exam, it's going to be so inconsistent.

Why do you say race and ethnicity makes a difference? In policing? You don't think it does? No. I think it does to some degree. Give me an example. I've seen cases that are in the news where it's just straight up,

give me your license, give me your registration. Like there's no communication. If someone can't speak English, you don't think that they're going to treat them a little ruder. I'm not saying every cop, but I'm saying in some degrees you do see these clips and videos where it's like that. Okay, but you still didn't give me an example.

So I'm like a direct example. Oh, well, how about I give you one? Okay. Let's talk about the most famous case that we've had recently. Which was it? There's a few. Which was the one that turned the country around? Floyd.

George Floyd. You sort of video, right? Yeah. Was that race-based? Was the actual action race-based? Do you think it was race-based? Like the whole situation? I would say so, right?

Why? You make me think. Of course. Because what people want to do is always make it tethered to race. There's not one iota or shred of evidence that shows that race was the reason that this cop did this horrific act. And believe me, I think it was horrific. But everyone made it about race. It turned this country completely upside down about saying a white cop did this to a black man.

What if it was just an evil person doing something to a person? who should have complied and went into custody. Made it all about race. And for me, knowing tactics, from a tactical perspective, I can go through each one of the situations. Like, I'm a scholar of these situations. Like, I read the cases. I've paid departments for, you know, freedom of information, I think,

so I can read. I cannot tell you one that I found where a KKK card fell out or where someone got M-bombed while they were doing it. You can inside your subconscious mind feel that it was race. space, but if you don't have proof of it, then you take away from the tactical part of it. Because I can tell you tactics on every one of these situations that could look different. But even when we're done here today, just say, why did I think that this whole thing with George Floyd was race-based?

Like, where is the evidence of that? And what happens? Like, you're a white dude, right? Do you think that I'm sure that you would not say to me right now that you're racist? You may have some biases that exist just like everybody else. But if you do something to a person of color, you're going to get. get blamed for being raised. So then is it fair then? Totally fair. But you can't also say that not every single police officer doesn't react to a certain

situation based on race, right? I think that race plays a factor in things, but show me how we prove it. Yeah. What I say that is if you want to hold someone to the fire, then you show me the tactics and I can address the tactics and I can address the law. If you take it and make it race base without evidence, then we have no real means of addressing an issue. Well, it's very hard to prove. It's nearly impossible to prove unless again they drop their KKK card or n-bomb somebody. Or they say something directly in that moment. Correct. Yeah.

And that's why, you know, for me, I taught about implicit bias for years. And in my opinion, it exists. But if it's implicit, then it's a ghost, right? Because that means we don't know it. So how do we address and how do we fix it? I taught a class called the sole search warrant, the sole search warrant. how do you look inside yourself, find out what's really inside you, to see if you really do have these racial biases. They exist, but how do we prove it and how do we address it?

So I'm very big on saying that I think that police are actually less racist than a lot of people in society. Because we look at things and we're fearful of behaviors. We look at a way that, like I can look at a person. Like if I'm watching a cop's episode and I've been on a show a few times, I can look at a copseptop, so I'm like, that guy's getting ready to run. That guy's getting ready to run. And there are like factors that we look at and we know happy feet, you know, the way that they're blading their body, the way they're looking for an escape. I mean, we know these things.

They have absolutely nothing to do with race. Okay. That's totally fair. But don't you think that, all right, so maybe the bigger question is they're gauging someone on behaviors and what they maybe age behaviors, a mixture, everything, when they pull someone over. and they're seeing someone for the first time. Like, I just have a feeling that, like, a nerdy kid like me with glasses might get treated differently than an older guy, race out of it, ethnicity out of it, someone that maybe looks a little harder looking or has tattoo showing or anything like that, just that dynamic

based on behaviors and how the person presents himself. So I will agree with you, then what we're saying is something even deeper. And so have you ever heard the saying? So I would talk about this in when I teach a class. the BBG. What is that? The big black guy. Okay.

You've heard that term before, right? In prison. Right? Big black guy. Big is enhancement to what? Strength or? That means black is an enhancement to strength too, right? Yeah.

So you'd be in a bar with your white friends and he said, oh, this big black guy came in, would you consider that racist? No, I tell it in my stories. You do tell it in my stories. On my TikTok, like, but I'm not racist and I would never, yeah, that's just a description of the story of the But what you did is, think about what I'm saying here, big is an enhancement to fear for people, then black is an enhancement to fear for the people that use the big black guy term. Why don't you just say he's a big guy? Okay, that's a fair point.

Right? And you just said you're not racist. So is it stereotyping then? Is that what the better term is? So it's definitely. Do cops incorrectly stereotype in a pullover? Is that a better term? So I would say that cops are humans.

So yes, of course, yes, they do. And Derek Chauvin, which was the officer with Floyd, he could be racist. I don't know. I don't know to do, right? What I'm saying is if you just blanket that on every single incident where there's a white and a black people interacting, we're going to just destroy the fabric of what this country can be. I'm very patriotic. Like I used to stand up for the national anthem in my house when there was no one else there.

It's not always about race, but it's always about race. Yeah. You know, and it's so sad. What I've come to find is that you will find across this country, you'll find black people and white people without the media around, without anyone else around, getting along just fine, drinking a beer together, hanging out together, joking about stereotypes of each other in different. workplaces and whatever. And once it gets outside that circle, it becomes this huge race thing. And it's sad. Yeah.

It's so, like, complex. It is. It's just a very, and I don't think anyone has the right answer to it. And there's also the aspect of people stare on the other end, how we stereotype cops and that and because we all, like, there's a stereotype that all cops are bad in a way. Yeah, the ACAB group. Yeah, so there's, there's, that's what it is. Yeah.

So there's that aspect of it too. So it works on both sides of it. It does. And any group that wants to, you know, generalize an entire group of people, I would, like ACAB, I think that those people have the ability to be racist. Because if you can generalize a whole group of people, then you can do it by race, you can do it by age, you can do it by gender, you can do it by anything. So I don't give them any credit. So why did you decide to become a sergeant finally after 15 years? So I decided to become a sergeant after 15 years because, one, I knew that I could, on that line level of officer, I had the right amount of experience, both of doing the wrong thing sometimes and also doing the right thing that I could help these young cops.

Like, there are officers, my guys, that still reach out to me to this day for guidance. And I know that I gave them the best that I could possibly give them. You know, being a sergeant, I remember when I was a recruiter, too. And when I was in recruiting, there was a civilian guy who was in charge of the recruiting department, the whole personnel. And he looked at us one day and he's like, we were preparing the sergeant's test. When I was recruited, we were helping prepare the sergeant's test. And he's like, this is the best gig on the whole department, best rank, best rank. Because the sergeant really has the most power because the line officer, you're like, you'll have the chief or the sheriff or whatever.

We had a sheriff, Metropolitan Police Department. We were county that, you know, we worked for an elected official, which is the difference, right? He could send down whatever he wants. The sergeant is the one who's going to tell the people or enforce what his edict of whatever it is that he or she wants done. You know, they'd listen. Like, my guys listened to what I said do. I had an officer of mine get into a situation once. and his he was off duty and his he was real tight with all the guys and I had just taken over the squad

and they they said serge we know that we can trust you we're going to tell you you know where he is so you can talk to him because we know that you'll give him a fair shot and that I knew that you know I had my street stripes you know like to me that's why you know I see these people they go you know they go rank to rank to rank to rank that's one of the biggest issues with bigger departments. Like, I worked for a big, like, Vegas is a big department. One of the issues is that you get these people, they do a year and a half, two years on the street, maybe three years on the street, then they want to go to this unit, then they want to go to that unit, then they want to get promoted, and they want to do it. Then you have no continuity, you know.

Two things will change policing. Get back to where we have foot patrol cops. What I used to do is when I was a sergeant, I'd park my car, I'll get on the radio, I say control my, and I say my call sign out on foot, Fremont, and such and such. And you know, I would not even have to say a word. And then within about five, ten minutes, one of my guys would go out and walk with me. And we would walk up and down Fremont Street.

I would walk it when that was my area. Every single shift. I would walk it, get out of car, and walk. The other thing is to make people stay in the same area for a while, right? Like, make a commitment to a unit. Like, can you say to a person? a cop really cares about an area if his biggest goal is to go work in narcotics as soon as he can and then go work whatever and then get promoted to lieutenant and then get promoted like who really cares about this area right here like everything got so big so fast and the windows are rolled up and the air conditioners on and you see cops ride by each other they don't even say how do each other how do you expect them to be engaged in the community that they're working and that's why that reflects back to the concept of having people that have overcame addiction or we're in prison working with people that are in prison or suffering with addiction.

It's like the lived experience aspect and having that closeness. How can you, it's harder for an inmate to trust a correctional officer when they're two entirely different things and you have that difference in power. But that applies to the street with a police officer and the community they're working in. If they're working on the street closely and in the neighborhoods, there's builds that trust. So I got to participate in a really cool program. And I think it was Bill Clinton who signed it. It was called the Officer Next Door program. Have you heard of this?

So what the federal government did was that police and teachers, it's like, we want you to be involved in the community. You move into this neighborhood for three years. Move, your personal, you move into this. It's in the hood. You can, the house that you buy will take 50% off the list price. So they'll pay for it. So no, they, so what happened?

is you buy it for the regular price, you do the three years, and it cuts down 50%. How? But where's that money come from? It's a federal. Oh, it's a federal. So you get a federal, it's a federal loan, right? Okay. I did it. Oh. I did it. And it was an amazing experience.

It makes you have a completely different viewpoint and look at and treat people. It sucked. I'll tell you a couple of money started everyone to be one time. So I get this house. I meet girls or whatever, and they were like, you're, you're copy you live here? Like, yeah, I live here. And so one day I went and I arrested this guy on a domestic. And he was being a complete idiot. And we didn't get along.

He was talking about he's going to beat me up and all this other stuff. Anyway, and they would always say that. Book them. A few weeks later, I'm in front of this little house I had in the hood. I was like I was going to put some gravel and try to beautify it, right? Because that's what they expect you to do. I walk into the place, find the stuff I want, fill out all the paper, put my home address, and who walks out to do the delivery of the stuff?

The guy who I had arrested. So now I just gave him my address. And he lived a few blocks away in the same hood. Oh, man. You know, they have this scenario, I think, in the rookie. I was watching it where a cop moved into like one of these neighborhoods. It was called the Officer Next Door program. That's actually great.

But off-duty stuff is, man, that's one of the most challenging things, man. Like, I've had people that I run into off-duty who, you know, weren't happy about going to jail. And it sucks, man, because, you know, you always have to be prepared for that type of situation. And then you have kids, you know, that's exposure as well. Yeah, being at, especially in small cities, if you're a cop and you're off-duty and you're running into people, the locals and whatnot, that's got to be hard. art and you have to look at it. Us as civilians have to look at it as like they're doing their job, which is something I never really looked at before, but now I look at the bigger picture, the more you talk

to people. And it gives you perspective. It does. Like this person did this because of this situation. I used to get very heated in the moment, but then when you look at the bigger picture, things and you take time to think and base your actions on that. But, you know, that's why, you know, you connect, like connecting with people. like because he never did anything because he realized he was being a jerk off and the truth is for the most part I was always incredibly respectful to people and there were obviously there are outliers right there are times where maybe I was having a bad day or whatever so I'm sure there are people and that's why I put the apology in the book but it was always important for me to connect with people and becoming a hostage negotiator really helping me with that but interesting story about connecting with people I'll share with you two quick ones this guy he has a gun to his head

his neighbor calls the police. We arrive. I can tell you, I remember exactly where this place was and everything. So I'm standing outside the door talking to the guy. He was inside of his bathroom. So at the time, I wasn't even as a negotiator. This was actually before I was a negotiator, but I was always practicing the tactics of negotiation.

So the guy's in the bathroom. And I'm like talking to him from like voice talking to the guy so he can hear. And he's crying and everything. He's like, my, we talk and talk and talk and we bond. And he says, you know what? And by this time, everyone else shows up, but I'm still the one that's primarily talking to him. And he's like, I'll only turn myself into me. So he puts the gun in the sink, comes outside, turns stuff off to me and comes, hugs me, he's crying.

He's like, you know, thank you so much for listen to me, listen to me. And I told him that if he came out, I would walk him, you know, to the ambulance. And I'd stay with him at the ambulance. And mind you, I'm, like, feeling bad for this guy. Like, he's been through a lot in his life. And, like, we just talked and talk. The paramedics come out to me because they went to get his meds. Because that was one of the issues.

His meds weren't working. She's like, come here, you're going to want to see this. So I go inside the apartment, inside of his little apartment, and in the drawer, stacks of kitty porn. Wow. So I had just been talking to this guy. and somewhat bonded with him. I know you're familiar with Stockholm, right?

You got to be careful about. So I somewhat bond with this guy, and then I see this. You know? It takes you like this weird roller coaster of experience. Another one where I was a sergeant at the time. Wasn't even on, I wasn't on a negotiation team. This guy, this isn't a very high profile of Vegas case.

Chevalier. You can look it up. Google Michael Chevalier. This lady's on her, she's in the apartment. She's talking on the phone to her friend. And all of a sudden, she hears her friend scream. And then the phone goes down. She calls 911 and says, my friend, I was just talking to the phone. I heard this like weird scream and something happened. So see, police, we can, when I hear a call come out on the radio, I could tell you if it's legit or, and I heard this call come out. Some of my officers get dispatch to the call. And so I'm like, that's a call that I should be rolling to. I roll up to the call, as I roll up to the call, the two first cops are going up this staircase.

I can see them going up the staircase and I'm putting my car up. And then I just see them backpedaling and having their guns out and like freaking out and falling backwards down the steps. Control, you got 413, 413. It's just a gun. 413. So they bail. The guy goes back inside the apartment and I get my guys down. We go in my car.

And by this time all my guys are showing up. and I start diagramming on the car where I want everyone to go. One of my officers, super solid dude, he was a Marine as well. He has a rifle. He's like, Sarge, let me go by this CC's pizza over here, get my rifle. In case the guy comes out with the gun, I'll light him up. So he, listen, if you're a boss and someone gives you a good idea, you listen. So my guy goes, he goes over to the P.

It wasn't CC's. It was one of the different pizza ball. It doesn't matter. But anyway, he goes to the pizza. He goes to the, enters the pizzeria. As soon as he gets into the pizzeria, the guy comes out and starts shooting towards my car. We go down and my officer lights the guy up, but he doesn't, he hits the door frame. And so like all the, you know, the wood and everything is going all over the

so we didn't know if he was hit or not. It turns out he wasn't hit. He was bleeding. And so I's like, screw this. I got to get this guy on the phone because if I call him, I can get him to stop trying to shoot at us. I get him on the phone. It's Michael. So Michael and I are talking and talking so I'm going to fast forward a little bit. The girl is still inside. So by this time SWAT and everyone's there, but I'm the primary because Michael and I had developed a relationship. I have an audio recording of this conversation too.

It's really long. So Michael goes, so, but it's, I'm not, I can't tell you all of the tactics, but by this time SWAT had done some things that prepared them to be able to do what they need to do and want to be to still continue to speak to him because the decision was made that we were going to go to condition to, which means that I'm supposed to talk. him in front of the window so that the sniper can kill him. Wow. So mind you, I'm talking to Michael and knowing that at any moment, you can hear, you're going

to hear a shock go out. And I'm talking to essentially a dead man. Turns out Michael never goes in front of the window. A different plan is made. They put explosives, breach through a wall, go in and kill Michael in the bed with the woman who he had been raping. intermittently throughout this time. And then you go to the next call.

Just like nothing ever happened. What else do you do? Then do you just think about, you concern yourself. Because this lady, it had just been, the weather had gotten nice. This lady decides to talk on the phone and be outside on her thing. And she's got to not only deal with being rape, but having a guy shot right next to her in the bed and killed.

You know? I mean, these things, like people don't have, you know, And the people say, well, you signed up for it. Yeah, we did. We did sign up for it. But again, have some degree of compassion for what. You have no idea what an officer has seen. You have no idea what an officer's, but call after call after call, after call.

Give me another conflict. And that's not asking for sympathy. I mean, I think it's an incredibly wonderful profession. One of the Peeleian principles says that what the work that police do is the work that everyone in the community should do. and they're only people in the community that have the honor of being paid to do it. The honor of being paid to do what everyone in the community could do.

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Western shirts, and accessories for an effortless, polished look. Shop quality Western goods in store or online at Takova's.com. There was one of my neighborhoods in New York that you didn't even need the police because everybody in the neighborhood handled the business. Now, the story you just shared, did that influence you to becoming a negotiator yourself? I was a negotiated before that. Oh, but you were already a negotiator.

I was a negotiator and then I got in trouble and kicked off the team. And then you went back to it. Well, no, I was trained. I mean, just because you get kicked off doesn't mean you'd lose. your training. I was trained and I was good at it. So I was on the scene. So it was quite natural that I would be the primary person to address and deal with Michael. So you never went back to negotiating? No, I didn't. And what was your title? Is it hostage negotiator? Yeah, it's really, it's kind of cool. Like you get to have, you have that title and you're on call. And it sucked to be, I hated being on

call because at the time, most of the time when I was in, well, all the time I was a negotiator. I was single and you're in Vegas and you get to, I was partying a lot and going to clubs and you have your own call and you could be right in the middle of an incredible date and you get a call out for some, it could be a really high level one or it could just, it could be a person who's despondent because their dog died. They lost their job and their wife is cheating on them. So you're not in uniform or anything. It's just plain street clothes when you show up to these. Negotiators are, yeah. So that's your full-time gig as a negotiator? No. Well, there are some people that, you know, like that are training coordinators for that team or whatever, but everyone else has another job. So the cool thing about negotiations is that you could have someone. When I was on the team, we had some people that were in dope. We had some people that were in training. We had some people that were, I mean, every, so you had a convergence of different minds. And then it was like, you know, you're in this tactical operation center coming up with this plan. Like, who's going to talk to them? What are we going to talk about? You know, it was really super high level.

stuff. So to walk us through from the time you get the call to the actual scene of any type, but you could give us just a vague example. Of a negotiation. Yeah, of a negotiation. Yeah, of a negotiation. Okay, so I'd be, you know, at a, I'd be at dinner with friends. And we, you know, back then, when I first hired them, we had those big pagers where they had,

like, where you could read a whole bunch of texts across. It was like those Motorola police pager things. and as soon as it would go off, I'd be like, heck on it would always be at the most inopportune time. So, and then it would, across, you would read the screen, and it would say it would be the 400 code of whatever it was, despondent, and then it would say despondent mail, inside hotel at Bally's casino,

called down to the front desk that he doesn't want to live anymore, potentially has firearms, has a history of mental illness, and then you just race to the scene and you get on the radio and you say control and you tell them your call sign, I'll be your route. You go and you look like a big wig or whatever

because you get to pull up and park wherever you want at the casino, you go in, you know. And then you meet the rest of the team and then once you meet up with the team, there are four positions. The person who's in charge, you know, the hostage

commander of the hostage team is going to decide who's going to be primary, who's going to be secondary, who's going to be intel, and who's going to be like either the scribe or the person who is who who collects and gathers the information so there's like four primary positions so the primary person who talks the secondary person who keeps the primary on track the intel person who gets all the intelligence information about the subject so that person is the person who's calling the family what kind of meds is he

taking what kind of firearms is they have and then you have the tactical person who communicates with the SWAT team to kind of let the SWAT team because you know, it's either going to be that we're going to breach and go in and get the person. We're not going to do anything or we're just going to talk forever. And so it just looks like what you kind of see on TV with the exception of it sometimes can't be over the top like that. Interesting negotiating that occurred because a lot of people know this because it's been so many negotiation once, but this is one that I'm sure there's never been on TV or ever

be on TV. It didn't happen to me. But the negotiator was talking to the guy who was despondent and was talking about killing himself. And in the beginning of the conversation, the guy goes, I know exactly what you're trying to do and you suck at it and then shot himself in the head. Oh, my God. So the ones you lose as a negotiator, because there are losses, individuals, do they haunt

you? Like forever? Does that ever go away? You know, so does it haunt you? Like thinking about what I could have said differently because you should. So that kind of stuff does haunt you, but I'm just really trying to think back, legitimately the things that bother me more are are not those like that that that kind of stuff like some people are just going to do that and and and there's not really much you can do and

what bothers me is like this is weird that I'm saying this but there are sometimes where I'm like dang his life is really screwed up I don't know that I would want to live through that like if like that's just my id coming out right now and just being 100% real with and that's please God forbid I'm not telling any of to do that act. But what I'm saying is the real human part of me says that, like, I don't, I don't want to live without legs, like, or without the ability to be able to, like, God. Like, I don't even like saying that out loud.

Like, sometimes you talk to people, and their lives are really, really messed up, man. Like, I've been to house. I went on this call one time with this, these people, this lady had a stillborn baby. They lived in this horrific, disgusting trail apart. They're stillborn baby. they took baby pictures with it and had them on the wall inside their house and thought it was completely normal, thought it was completely normal. And I went to their house on multiple calls. So whenever you think of how bad your life is, there's someone who has a picture with their

stillborn baby on the wall in their house as like normal. So like I see things and I'm like, I thank God for the, I mean, for the blessings that I have. And so. should everyone else to some degree. And when you get into an altercation with someone or they cut you off or you don't know what that person is going through or what they've been through, you know? I went to a call one time,

so there's a, this is Frank area. I worked the Frank area a lot. So on graveyard, I would drive up to this desert area mountain. And I remember one time seeing this ghostly figure walking down the middle of the streets. My headlights caught this lady. She just had a shirt on.

it from the bottom down. And it looked like a horror movie, right? She was a Native American First Nation lady, so she had the big hair and everything. She was drunk, shirt, only a shirt on. Blood and fluids leaking down her leg and just wobbling down the street. I call it out on the radio. Turns out she was at a bar down the road. Four or five guys took her up there, gang raped her.

the detective got to the jail It was an old school detective I still remember who he was But this was a long long long time ago Do you want to know the first thing he said to her He said girl where are your britches The degree of Incompassion

The lack of understanding who this person was As a human being crushed me So you asked if I The ones I lost No those ones are gone But that lady has to live through not only being violated to that degree,

but for someone in the position of authority saying something that inhumane to her. You know, to get, when I used to teach my police academy classes on every title screen, it would say human, in lowercase as a reminder of humility. It would always say human on every single, when you look at my PowerPoints, the title of my class was human.

And every single one said human, because always wanted to remind the officer that we're dealing with human beings on February 14th, 2000, I think 2011 or 2010 or 11, I get called to negotiate for a guy. It wasn't a call-out for negotiation. It was a call-out for CIT crisis intervention team because I was certified on that. That's the team that's right there. They call you out. and I was on call that.

I was on that night. So I'm a sergeant on patrol. This guy has a gun. He's walking on Fremont between 4th and Maryland Parkway, somewhere around there with a gun, Valentine's Day. A lot of times over breakups, people are despondent. So this is early in the morning. I get there and I see the guy.

And like the cop, they're driving me into the scene because they blocked it up. So I get into the passage and the cop, I'm like, the guy's right there, bro. So we pull over. And I get on the PA and I start talking to the guy. And he's not responding. He's just going back and forth with this gun. And these guys, there's like all these cops on this dude. I'm like, they're about to like this guy.

I'm like, listen. And so I'm like, maybe he does a speaking link. So I started doing it in Spanish. And let's not telling him in Spanish, right? He's not listening. He's not listening. And every time he does something, I'm like this, he finally lifts it. They light him up.

I run up. Weirdest thing, when you see people shot like that so many times. But the weirdest thing is that guy, they shot his pinky off. And I remember seeing his pinky was laying next one, but he was gone. But here's the interesting part about that story. The coroner's inquest, this lady, everyone testifies, and this lady walks up. No one knows, I didn't know who she was. She had like kind of cheap dress on, and she said, she walks up, she sits down.

They swear in. And she says, she said, I just wanted to say that that person, that was, that he was my brother. And while no one else in here cared about him, I wanted to make a point of coming here to let you know that there were people that loved and cared about him. Because the process before that was just very mechanical, this part, that part. And it got me emotional to think that we become so detached from that. But sometimes you almost have to become detached from it because if you get so connected to these situations, like I was, I logged on to Swing Shift one time on Maryland Parkway, call comes out shots fired in a in a in a in a in a a a apartment place pizza pizza pizza via dude young kid no I mean definitely younger than you

probably 18 or 19 years old but I mean similar kind of look right there's a girl with him also in a pizzeria uniform it was his girlfriend who decided to go on the last call with him and they were going to go to movies afterwards they robbed him and shoot him and this girl is holding on my leg saying wake him up she told him

wake him up please wake him up this happened years ago and I hear her voice in my head that these guys want to rob a pizzeria guy last call she goes with him

and gets killed the detachment from humanity that exists inside of the world is just is baffling to me you need more compassion We do We do

We do And that's why I feel bad for guys Who go to prison Because it's from my understanding Of what they deal with It's the exact opposite of compassion You have to become a complete beast To exist in a world of predators

Yeah You know That's why I think it's important To get these stories out That like the guys that come on the show The women that come on the show Who don't normally get A platform to share those stories

So people know that they're humans too. Yes. You're humanizing them. They are. You know, the guys were in prison before. They were usually the ones who were the most respectful in the street.

It was the young kids who had never been in prison before that were usually more disrespectful. The guys who have been to prison, if they got stopped, they were usually a lot more respectful. Well, that's how it is in prison, too. The young gang bangers that come in and stuff,

they're the ones causing all the ruckus. They're the ones extorting, robbing, doing all that. And the old heads got to say, yo, chill the fuck. out because you're just bringing too much heat and they're just acting a certain way. I believe in second chances. Absolutely. Well, that's why you're here today, you know?

Yeah, this is true. You're giving me a second chance. You got a badge now. Yeah, I got a badge now. Yeah, I actually just interviewed someone that became a correctional officer after. I saw him. Yeah, that was interesting. I mean, that doesn't work on the federal level.

No. And that's obviously very state by state. It's interesting, the power, like sheriff. have, I got to go to the Low and Oak County Jail in Arkansas. And the sheriff, you know, invited me in, explore the place. You could do interviews. Like, they have so much power, the elected officials over those jails. It's so much different than anything that that's, it's just like, it's crazy.

That was a good episode. I also just watched the one with the girl. She has a podcast with Tommy Lee's wife. Oh, Brittany Schmidt. Yeah, I watched hers. Hers was good. I actually have a funny Tommy Lee story, too. but yeah she yeah i i do their clips i edit their clips for them oh cool

i run all the club man he's really really cool i met him when i was a cop in Vegas really that's awesome what a small world yeah but she really opened up in that interview it was good day i thought it was good for her to be shown in a non-comedic light like for people to actually see the real i had no idea who she was i had to look who she up who she was after the fact because when i saw her i just saw a very naked very kind of raw, a little bit sad human, and I wanted to learn from it. Like, I always, when I watch your episodes, I'm like, what can I do to either help myself or help someone I love with what I can pull from it?

In every episode, there's something. Yeah, well, I guess I'll do it by job then. You are? Were you around during the OJ case in Vegas or not? I was. Was that your department? I was working Tupac night. You worked Tupac?

I worked Tupac night, that same area. Really? But you didn't respond to. Heck, no. So I could have, but here's what happens. So here's a cop thing, right? So if a scene like that comes and you're a street cop, you don't want to be like one of the last ones there

because you're going to get a sucky position. Like you're going to be stuck on an intersection at like Flamingo and the boulevard and directing traffic for whatever, right? So you'd much rather shag calls for service. So once he got, once the shooting came out, my boy sent me a message on the computer. he was like, yo, that was your boy that got shot.

I was like, ooh. And he said, Tupac. I was like, oh, for real? And I was like, oh, man, they're going to, I don't know why my mind went to this. Because I've never seen this happen in Vegas, but I was like, they're going to, the ambulance people are going to take his jewelry. I don't know why, because it's a New York thing, right? Like, that's a New York thing.

And then I was like, should I go? And then I just, I liked it not to go. And then I ended up getting stuck having to go to the hospital because then they would have us go and post at the hospital. And you'd see the people coming and going and stuff. like that. But yeah, no conspiracy there, he's dead. Yeah, but what do you think about all these?

Didn't they just arrest the shooter? There's news of all. What do you think of all that? That's going on. You know, it's funny. That to me was a dog and pony show. That was, um, what's his name? He's from L.A. Vlad? No, no. The guy who got arrested, he told on himself.

And it was just... During the interview, right? During the multiple interviews, he just told on himself. And then he made the police look bad, right? Right. And then the police get on and do a dog and pony show and say, oh, yeah, we never rested on, you know, this thing. And the lead detective on that sharp dude, I know him. In fact, we worked patrol together. And that's not to take anything away from him. But whenever, you know, they do the press conferences and stuff like that, I mean, the guy who ended up getting arrested for it. I mean, he told him himself. Now, with the OJ case, I was reading kind of like into that. Where he stole his own stuff? Yeah. Do you think that sentence was given as like an act of karma? like they knew he was guilty of the murder. It wasn't act of karma.

It wasn't act of we're going to get your black. But like on both aspects, like they would that, I guess the question is, would a sentence normally be given to a person that wasn't previously on a murder trial? I don't even know if that case would have even gone anywhere. I mean, you went there and so, but I mean, Oji had to be stupid. Like, why are you going to, like, lay low? Like, you got away, in my opinion, with a double homicide. You shouldn't have been shaking booty anywhere, man.

You should have just been, you should just shut up. You know, otherwise, you know, but again, if God forbid, if that, you know, you think about if that was your family member, you know, OJ would have some penance to pay with you, right? I would imagine, you know, he wouldn't be walking around. It was at the, the stigma around officers that he was guilty during that time? Because you were active law enforcement during that time. 100%. Yeah, but you want me to tell you what happened was it became a race thing. And then it pitted black people against white people for absolutely.

no other reason than to create some kind of, and you weren't around that, right? Like you weren't old enough to really kind of be in tune. But it became, there was the news would go to black places and show how people were going to respond to it and then go to white places. And you would see black people celebrating and you would see white people like, I can't believe this, right? And it's like, so much just becomes this race thing. It just becomes so, it's draining.

It's draining. Like, you know, it even affected my youngest, my youngest daughter because she was almost like a BLM type person for a minute, like thinking that police. She's like, show me a video. Why are the cops doing this to this guy? Why, you know, why are it? And I would sit down and say, okay, let's look through it frame by frame. Let's look at the back. And then you'd be like, oh, my goodness.

Okay. So this is different. So I got to her at enough time where she wasn't completely brainwashed into just immediately believing what the media says about things. because the media spin on a lot of things is just to get clicks or just to sell papers. And race and bleeding will always lead. But do you think there were mistakes made by the police in that case? Because I was watching the documentary. And it seemed like there was a couple of the detectives that it wasn't handled properly.

There were mistakes made. And I watched the same documentary. And I also read several books about it. And so I put together as much information as I possibly could. I believe OJ did it. I believe the police made some mistakes, and I believe that Mark Furman, the one who dropped all the N-bombs, he hurt the case because, you know, F. Lee Bailey was one of the attorneys,

and Flee Bailey's sole purpose, I won't say sole purpose, but Flee Bailey's, one of his primary purposes was, was to address Mark Furman's racist past to affect the jury. Because it's difficult for a person of color to hear a person, end bomb multiple times and then look at them like an authority figure and it worked. Yeah. I feel like if that trial happened now, it would be a lot different with the technology, like with proving that murder and all of that.

Like you can't get away with that now. Yeah, no. Now it would have been a lot different. But again, now, yeah, now it would have been a lot different. I mean, how many people are actually winning murder cases where they're the sole suspect where there's not, I mean, look at the Idaho murders. I just watched that documentary. And that, and that showcased, it was shining a bad light on influencers that are pretending

to be crime reporters, which I think hurts the case that they're just showing up and putting out false information. But that case in general is a, I don't know, it just, all the facts kind of point to him. and I know we have a system of innocent until proven guilty, but... We really don't, though. Yeah. We really don't. No, the idea of the system.

No, I get what you're saying. But, you know, that's a fun conversation. Because think about it, if you do a perp walk with somebody and they're in handcuffs... Oh, it's so fucked. It's unfair. I think perp walks should be... I don't think perp walks should be allowed. There shouldn't be news articles allowed.

How are you going to look at a person and not think... If you see a person on a perp walk, you think they're guilty. Yeah. We all do. We all do. So the standard that we really do use people for is the probable. cause standard in probable cause is if the facts and circumstances will warrant a prudent man to believing a crime had been committed and the commute and that the accused committed it that's

the standard for probable cause the facts and circumstances that warrant a prudent man and thinking that a crime was committed we think a crime was committed and that the cues committed it and if the police can put together probable cause which is a much lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt that's what we go with in our own lives but when all these rules and laws were written back in the day there was no technology that like this whole innocent until proven guilty the media the media did not exist back then. So there was that integrity in these investigations. There was integrity and people really didn't fall for bullcrap.

Like if the preponderance of the evidence led a person to believe that someone did it, I mean, they were getting confessions back then too. Like people were just like, you know what? They owned up to a lot of stuff too. Now people fight tooth and now. I mean, I guess you can say as they should. But back then, like, all right, you got me. You know, you got me.

And when we say back then, and we're talking about the 1950s back then, the 1850s when it was first written this whole idea right that was by the founding fathers that's where the stem from right so that was very very different i mean then you had no um forensic evidence i mean then it was just like this place got broken into john the neighbor said that this is the person who did it the constable yoked them up yeah i did it and they put them in the you know the who's gal for 30 days yeah i guess it's just like a double-edged short because it's sometimes it you don't want the system to work for people and other times you do want it to work that's a problem like yeah i can't sit here and say oh the like the murder guys the idaho guy is 100% guilty but then at the

same time me as someone who went through the criminal justice system and i thought it was unfair how they blasted you that's no different than how they blasted him but they're two very different things and it's just i don't know it's so it's such a gray area and it's a double-edged short it really really is. And we find ourselves rooting for different sides. But it all, I think it all roots back to the initial stem of this, you know, poisonous tree that it's a unfair system. Like the system's, it needs fixing. It is. And, you know, it comes down to a lot about cities became just so big. Cities became just so big. If you look at, there are communities that don't have police.

And how do they police those communities? The community police is it. because it's small enough to be police by themselves. Everyone knows everyone. The crimes, I mean, you probably don't remember, but there was a show called Andy Griffin. Yeah, I've heard of that show, yeah. Mayberry, they'd one cop and Barney Fife, right? And everyone knew everyone. So if something happened, you knew who did it.

But what happened was cities became so big that we just, once you become detached, that's how crime can thrive. Yeah. I hope they fix a system one day. Like I hope it just gets reworked. I know it's a broad statement. Move to a smaller city. Moved to us. Yeah, but you still, what about the federal level?

But who's going to mess with you on the federal level? I mean, if you want to avoid crime. I mean, are you saying fix the system or avoid crime? No, I'm saying fix the system in general. So you have a more optimistic outlook on life than I do. I'm more about avoiding crime, man. Yeah, well, I get it stems back to if you just avoid crime and don't even put yourself in there. That's why I'm big on reentry.

Like, I think it's more, reentry is more important. than reform because if you fix a reentry, then a lot of the system is people that have reoffended. Yes. So if you take that aspect of it, how much does that dilute the population prison to begin with? It's a fascinating thing to study. Because you need the reform is, you know, sentence and guidelines, this and that. But if they're not committing crime, if people aren't committing crime to begin with, you don't even need the sentencing guidelines. So if you could remove three crimes from society, what would that?

What do you mean by remove? Like, people aren't allowed to do that or take the law out? Let's just go to a utopian society. What top three crimes would you remove? Where it wouldn't be a crime if the person did it? No, no, if it didn't occur. Oh, we don't want sexual offenses. Any type of thing against a minor or...

So no sexual offenses. Yeah, no sexual offenses. Okay, what else? No crimes against women. Well, I mean, but I'm talking about robbery. So, so I'm saying like robbery. burglary, like that form of... All right, so sexual offenses.

Yeah. Gun violence. Is that a fair one? Is that it? I wouldn't say, well, so are you saying take away guns? No, I'm not saying takeaway. I'm saying the acts of someone going into a school and having acts of violence or anything like that. Mass shootings.

Mass shootings. Yeah. So sexual mass shootings, what's the third? I go, hmm. Let's say robbery. So robbery. Okay. So you don't mess with nothing. So drugs not an issue? The drugs is such a broad thing because you're not going to, the person selling marijuana is a lot different than the person selling lace drugs with fentanyl, right? I agree. Yeah, you can't, you can't compare that.

I'm more libertarian when it comes to drug laws. You'd be surprised. Like, even though I mean, I don't use drugs, but I'm very, very, not extreme, but I'm very libertarian when it comes to drugs. But I would agree with you. I'd say get rid of sex offenses. But again, a lot of that stuff is in smaller communities. You don't have them. Robbery, it's predatory. I would definitely get rid of robbery. And like the home invasion shit that's like, it's crazy, all of that.

But you know, then when you're looking for a fix, does that, is that fixed through like socioeconomic? Like are those people robbing because they can't eat? it's not it's cultural right yeah I never saw I never I never saw anyone do a home invasion because they couldn't find food to eat that's true and usually home invasions for the most part are people who robin dope but there's also operative but that goes back to don't commit crime because for someone that doesn't eat there is opportunity yes you cannot say that

there's not opportunity in america thank you in this country you can always eat like I look at the people that are homeless on the street holding up the sign asking to give them money and as a kid you're kind of you know meant to feel bad for them because that's just like program into our minds like that this is their situation, this and that. But then as I got older, knowing what I've come from and the failures I've experienced and literally rebuilding from nothing, you can walk into literally any restaurant or a whole food or whatever supermarket and get a job.

Yes. Because of the way today's world is where they need employees. Yes. So I don't feel bad for the people in those situations because there is an opportunity there. 100%. Whether you want to do it or not is the other. Because I've gotten guys that I talk with that reach out. They're like, I can't find a job.

And I'm like, well, where did you apply? And a lot of it, they don't want to go start at the bottom and work their way up. You want to get rid of crime? There's two things that we can, you can, signify my crime. 100% commitment to parenthood by parents. And I failed in that some ways. I mean, I have not been the greatest parent sometimes, just like every other parent. I'm not saying that.

I'm not saying that. But if we had 100% commitment to parenthood by both parents, And if we address the mental health issues that exist in our society, crime would decrease dramatically. Those two things. Yeah. Not well said. What's something you would want to say to some of the individuals that come on our show? Make your primary focus to teach something.

When I came here today, I said, I'm going to talk to Ian, but I want the little 15, 14-year-old that's potentially listened to this, looking for guidance in their life to hear me. So that was the ethos or the mindset that I wanted to have. I said, I'm talking to Ian, but I want to make sure that that young person has that because it's our obligation to do that. So when you come on here, have reverence for this space and make it a space where, in spite of it, be locked in. Like when we say locked in, right, it's different, right? Locked in, like if I'm locked in and I know that I'm about to be able to take care of the situation,

I'm locked in. And so I look at Locked in differently, like I kind of flipped it where it's a beautiful, you know, a name for your show. So be locked in in the sense that you have something valuable to give, have reverence for this seat. Because a lot of people who sat here before you came here and gave incredible wisdom and incredible knowledge and be prepared to do the same exact thing. Now, from the law enforcement perspective, because I know how the individuals who have been accused of crimes or served sentences feel. But from the law enforcement perspective, what's something they, you know, you wish I would do differently with the show if there's anything. So what I would want you to do differently with the show?

I don't know. I think cataloging your episodes to where a person could be, say, you know what, I want to learn about this. Or I think to make it easy for the, because understand that these are going to be archived and in the future forever. Forever. So imagine that you have now this repository of this incredible depth of information. and imagine if a person could say, you know what,

on Ian Bix thing, I can go and I can find a person who talked about this and I can gather this degree of information. And you could find a young college person who would be happy to look through your archives and catalog the stuff like that. Because you can get to a point where you have so much information where it's like, I like the way that that person looks. The thumbnail matters more than anything else, right? But how can we find the right information at the right time, the right person?

I think about it every day. These live there forever. There are many documentaries about a whole person that someone can use for reference. Like the next interview you get invited on by someone. They're going to look at this one. And they're going to say, how can we expand? How can we do this? It's just like, it's so cool that it just lives up there.

I think it's amazing. You have a gold mine. And not even only monetarily, I think, from the more from the intelligence and the wisdom aspect of it. I love the wisdom aspect of it. I love the philosophical. I love like what really hits. me that you were saying was just, you know, walk a mile on someone else's shoes. You don't know what that person's going through. And I think that reflects that perfectly on here.

It can bring you to tears what sometimes what a person has been through. Do you feel like you accomplished your mission by what you wanted to talk about? I do. I do. Um, you know, Tupac said, I will, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to change something. And I'm going to paraphrase. He said, I may not change the world, but I guarantee you I will spark the mind that changes the world. And I always thought that that was brilliant. And I don't even know he was the first person to say that. So my goal, if someone listens to this and it helps them in their journey for whatever reason, then I'll be happy. I just want to share one more story with you. There was one time where I was, the one time I ever shed a tear on duty, there was a party, a family reunion party.

and this two cousins met that had never met before. They were about 10 and 11 years old, two boys. There was about 40 family members. And a 911 call comes in, and everyone is freaking out and screaming, screaming. So we don't know. Because you know what they said? What 911?

What's your emergency? Is the police? So they didn't know. So they sent everyone. They sent us. So we get there. And the family members are just on the floor freaking out because this little boy, one of the cousins,

collapses. They transport them to the hospital, and we're trying to calm everyone down. I'm standing on the street. I'll never forget this. I'm standing on the street, and the grandfather walks out the front door. And he was just broken.

Remember he had like a little gray Afro and no hair on the top, and he says, James is gone. and it was just pandemonium. And the little boy who was the cousin, who had just bonded with his cousin, was just doing like a chicken on the floor.

He just couldn't. And I picked this boy up and I held him. And I'm on duty. And I'm like rocking him. It gives me chills when I think about it right now. And I look at my sergeant. And my sergeant's looking at me. And these tears are.

are just streaming down my face, and I didn't even know I was crying. I'm not a cryer, right? Which is weird that I even have to say that. I am human, so I guess I am a cryer for humans cry. And tears are just streaming out. And what I realized was that the pain that he was feeling was transferred into my being

and my body, and I was willing to accept that. And more than going out and chasing and shooting someone with the gun, Because he finally calmed down and I just, he was going, you know, after the person cries me, he was doing that. And then I late, after maybe 15, 20 minutes, I laid him down, I wiped my face, and went to the next call. That's crazy.

I think about that kid all the time. I give you a lot of credit for all law enforcement for having to do that because it's a very real scenario that individuals are facing every day. and it's not really looked at in that perspective. People are focusing on that one moment that you just described, but not what happens next. I created an animated series, a couple of animated series. One's called American Black and White.

And the other one I just created is called Copy a Call, which is an AI version of me. I sent you one today. It was my Mike Tyson one. Oh, the one on YouTube? You created that? Yeah, so basically these little short episodes of things that have happened to me as a cop.

And so that's an AI me when I have, So if I have my beard, that's me. Yeah. And so if you go to police IQ.com, you can find the link to those episodes. And it's always at the end there's a lesson. So at the end, I say, what's the lesson? And so I share a lesson with it. So the pain and triumphs and whatever that I've been through, my goal is to share lessons.

Were you always this entrepreneurial? I was always strategic in everything I did. And that turned into entrepreneur. Yes. Because everything has to be, should we have some degree of strategy in it. Do your kids take off or take after that? Are they entrepreneurial, that mindset? Does that get passed down?

They all take different parts of me, you know, as it should be. My sons are phenomenal. My daughters are also phenomenal. One of my daughters is a PhD candidate right now. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. The other one is the oldest, my old, well, she has a business. It's doing really, really well.

She does a lot of that, you know, social media stuff as well. Did they ever think your dad would, their dad would be doing a podcast? I've done a few podcasts. So they, yeah, they, I'll, when it airs, I'm going to send them a link. That's so cool. You know, I told, when I was at that restaurant last night, I told them, they thought it was the biggest, coolest thing because they knew I wasn't from here. Like, what are you doing in this town?

I know. It's such a random town. It is, it is. But I was surprised. It's pretty big. It's bigger than what I thought. It's bigger. And people know things, but they don't know things.

And I don't know. which is cool, the people that come through here and whatnot. Because we're just like right here at the studio, never to expect people from all walks of life just coming here. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, a sergeant from the Las Vegas Police Department to criminals and all this. It's just so wild.

Chevy Chase. I know. Yeah, that's your homie. Yeah, that's my guy. I love Chevy. But Sergeant Curtis, thank you so much for the gifts, for coming on and sharing your story. just for everything, man.

We've been talking for a few months now. I think even since last year, I think, right? We haven't. I could come up because, remember, I told you the weather. I don't travel. And you ended up coming when it's snowing today. I thought it was going to be nice. But you know what?

I'll make it back safe. You should have waited a couple more months. I'll be at the beach tonight. Yeah, but definitely stay in touch, man. I really loved and enjoyed this episode. Likewise, brother. Thank you.