Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was A Prison Guard Inside San Quentin’s Worst Unit | Darren Monohan

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Darren Monohan shares his experience working as a prison guard at San Quentin, guarding Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, and other high-profile inmates. He discusses the realities of working in a maximum-security prison, the dangers inside, and the challenges of handling death row prisoners. Darren also talks about the prison culture, interactions with infamous criminals, and what it was like to be on the front lines of the California prison system #SanQuentin #PrisonGuard #CharlesManson #RichardRamirez #TrueCrime #LifeBehindBars #DeathRow #InfamousPrisoners Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Thank you to ROCKET MONEY for sponsoring today’s episode!: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to https://rocketmoney.com/lockedin today. Connect with Darren Monohan: Website: https://oldskooliron.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/oldskooliron?igsh=MW10Nmlqc3U3Y2p5Zw== IG: https://www.instagram.com/grumpy_darren?igsh=MW44bXphOHo3NWt2Yw== IG: https://www.instagram.com/grumpy_darren?igsh=MW44bXphOHo3NWt2Yw== Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://www.ianbick.com/shop Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Growing Up in San Jose 00:05:15 Making a Career Decision: Benefits vs. Moral Dilemma 00:10:41 Navigating First Day Challenges as a Rookie Guard 00:15:43 Surviving Chaos: My Second Day on the Job 00:21:13 Career Reflections: From San Quentin to Solano 00:26:15 Life and Challenges at the Adjustment Center 00:31:33 Daily Routine of Inmates in Solitary Confinement 00:36:47 Nightstalkers: Chilling Stories and Encounters 00:42:17 Stories of Charles Manson and His Music Sessions 00:47:35 Life in High-Security USA Prisons 00:52:52 Challenges of Being a Police Officer 00:58:36 Challenges with Young Police Officers 01:03:57 Life as a Street Narcotics Cop in Richmond 01:09:05 Undercover Operation with FBI and DEA 01:14:35 Undercover Operation and SWAT Intervention 01:20:11 Gym Ownership and Partnership 01:25:37 Fear of Flying and Safety Concerns Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Darren, welcome to Lockton or shout out to Spotify for having us in L.A. right now. And I think you might be our first correctional officer that works San Quentin. We've had a couple inmates from there. But I think you're our first one. We had, do you know Hector Bravo? I don't know if he works San Quentin. But he's a correctional officer. He was on the show last year.

He's a lot younger. And he makes content about being a guard. And he got all the way up to, I think, like a lieutenant or something in the system. Oh, wow. He has a YouTube channel. You should definitely check that out. He's a really good dude. Oh, cool.

I will. And he kind of, like, exposes all the, like, the craziness in the California system. Right. But thank you for being a listener of the show, and thank you for coming out here today. Oh, yeah, awesome. Thank you for having me. Did you grow up in California? I grew up in San Jose, California.

Okay. Yeah. I grew up, I was born in Las Casas, but grew up in San Jose. Big family? Good family. My, had a brother, a sister, mom and dad. dad. So I had one sister, one brother. And middle class, average family. Growing up, dad worked hard, you know, and now just me and my brother left. Everybody else had passed on.

What did your dad do for work? He worked at a dairy plant making ice cream. Oh, wow. Yeah. Do you get a lot of free ice cream growing up? You know that it's it? It sounds familiar. They're like ice cream in the middle with cookies and chocolate covered. Yeah, yep, yeah.

They started making those when they first were, I don't know, invented. It's the right word. The first, you know, they came out. And if the cookie or chocolate was wrong on them, they got to bring them home. Oh, so. Boxes of them. That's cool. Boxes of them.

That's like in prison, I was telling someone that when the food expires at like McDonald's and stuff, they send it at least to the feds. We were eating McRibs when they took it off the menu. Oh, wow. I thought of that because I saw an ad earlier of the Mickrib being back. And I just remember the months we ate mic ribs as like a side dish at the chow hall, which was pretty funny. That's awesome. What did your mom do for work?

She worked like at some machine shop and then she cleaned houses and just little odds and then stuff. So no one was in law enforcement? Nobody was in law enforcement. My brother was in construction. My sister had odds and then jobs. And then my brother went on to be a fireman. And eventually retired as a fire chief. How would people describe you in school?

Were you into the gym like you're into it now? No, I was little in school. I wasn't picked on, but I wasn't nerdy. I was kind of a car guy, a gearhead, you know, and just average guy kind of blended in. Like I said, never really got picked on. Everyone's why someone tried to like bust a pencil over my head. I thought it was cool. Go ahead and do that.

Whatever. Did you know at a young age you wanted to get into law enforcement? around that time period? No, I wasn't sure. I had thought about it. I had taken some classes in the community college, and then I thought I was going to do that. And then I got hooked up with some friends,

and they were involved in the motorcycle group, the Hells Angels. So I thought maybe I'd try that. It's cool, right? Everybody wants to do that and wear those patches. I don't care what people say they do. People go, I don't want to say, okay, you're lying. Anyways, so we were at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds one night.

One of the guys had his full patches. The other guy was a prospect. And we're walking by, and there's a booth. This is 1985. I don't know what year you were born. Ten years left for that. I wasn't even a thought yet. It's in 1985.

We're walking by a booth, and they have a. whole setup with pictures of San Quentin. And a correctional officer's working in the booth as a recruiting booth. So I stopped to look at the pictures. That thought it was kind of cool, the history and everything. Wow, this is kind of neat. And the guy says, you want to work there? I'm like, no, I don't want to work there.

I'm 20 years old. I'm not even 21 yet. I'm 20. I said, no, I don't want to work there. And so I start to walk away. He goes, were you sure taking an application? I'm like, no, I don't want to, I really don't want to work there. And so my one buddy who's with me, stops and turns out and goes, hey, man, leave the kid alone.

He said he doesn't want to work there. He goes, well, how much, he doesn't even know how much we make. I said, okay, well, how much do you make? Because we'll start you at the academy. I think it was $1,800 a month. I'm making like $1,000 a month. Let me see the application. So I take it and I leave, right?

I don't give it much thought. I think it was September, September of 85. I filled it out. I only put two jobs down that I had. They asked for 10 years, but not that I had that much experience, but I sent it in and kind of forgot about it. And then I don't know how many months went by. It wasn't that long a month or two went by,

and they got a hold of me to go do another test, like a physical agility test, and there was an oral board. And I wasn't going to do it. So I was at the muffler shop with my buddy and Dave's muffler shop. And there's guys, you know, all the guys from the club, some of them are there. And I said, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that. And two of them were like, why?

You need to go do that. Like, really? It's like being a snitch, man. I want to be a snitch. You know, no, man, you need to go, you need to go follow through with that job. It's got benefits. take care of your family. And I'm like, man, really?

Yeah. You don't, man, the club, the club is just going to take stuff from you. It's not going to, it's not, you know. I think they knew I probably didn't have it in me to do what they do. I mean, that's stuff. I give them credit, man. They go through a lot to get those patches, and it's hard. So I went through everything next thing I know.

I passed that test and passed the next test. Then I'm in backgrounds. Well, now what they have to wait for, the academies are set. Back then, they were only six weeks, but you had to live there. I'm waiting, and they give me an academy date, but I wasn't 21 yet. I wasn't going to be 21 when I graduated. It was one or the other year. I wasn't going to be 21.

I graduated. I wasn't going to be 21 to start. So they delayed my academy until, I think it was May of 1986, is when I graduated and went to San Quentin. What do your parents think when you told them, hey, I got a call back for this job. I'm going to San Quentin. You know, of course, the mom's always worried, you know, and scared. My dad's like, you know, whatever. You don't care.

At least you got a good job, you know, so they were supportive of it, you know. And once I was there for a while, of course, you know, mom always wants to brag about you. Being a mom. What was the reputation of St. Quentin back then that you had to. heard of. Well, back then, back in the 80s, 86, 80, 70, you didn't have Pelican Bay wasn't open yet, New Folsom wasn't open yet. Corcoran was about to open. And those were all the high level, level four prisons. So all you had at that time was San Quentin and Folsom for all your high, violent, high, high risk inmates. And the majority of San Quentin at the time,

were security housing units, lockup units. And so it was kind of scary. You know, I'm 21 years old. And you're going through the academy and seeing people get stabbed. This guy, Sergeant Birchfield just got murdered there. Inmate stabbed him in the heart, died. And so that stuff goes through your head. That stuff goes to your head.

What about Alcatraz? Was that open at the time? Alcatraz wasn't open at the time. But there was a Sergeant Davenport and a Sergeant Wardy that had worked with Alcatraz. And they were sergeants at San Quentin when I started. So it was already closed by that point, Alcatraz. Yeah. You ever watched the movie The Rock?

Yes. I love that movie. I think I've seen it like 50 times. Oh, it's so killer. It was so good. Nickled, big Nicholas Cage. Right. I got to go do one those tours one time.

It's fun. Did they still do the tours? Yeah, they still do them. I think that would be cool. Yeah. Imagine doing an interview in there? That would be cool. Get that set up. So they were actually telling you guys that, you know, guards, officers were getting stabbed during the training aspect of it.

Yeah, you knew about it. And they would tell you or teach you for training purposes, you know, to be careful what to do, what not to do. And the training they received now is way better than when I, my first day. My first week, I was what they called a pie at the time, a part-time intermittent employee. And then my second week I made full-time. But my first job was working in the chow hall at 3 in the morning. And I'm the only officer there. I'm brand new. We've had some on-job training, you know, through the week at different places.

So I go to key control. I get the keys from Sergeant Wordy, who's working key control. And I said, what do I do? They said, we'll go there and see the free staff person and he'll tell you what to do. Okay. So I walked in there and anybody who's been an inmate there or worked there will tell you it's just like on TV. You walk in, the child halls are huge, big painted murals on the walls. Pretty cool, look.

I'm pretty bitching with all the artwork and stuff that's on those walls. but it's just like any movie you've seen or TV and I was just like, I don't know. I don't know if I can do this. So I go and I see the cook. And he goes, oh, talk to inmate. I can't remember his name. It's an inmate Smith or whatever.

And he'll show you what to do. I said, okay. So I go to him. I go, hey man, it goes, oh, you're new. I said, yeah. He goes, oh, okay, another fish. They'd call us fish. So, okay.

She goes, well, come with me. I'll show you what the keys are for. This keys for that. This keys for that. He goes, and let me show you the hot room. The hot room where all the knives were and utensils and stuff. He goes, in a little while, more inmates are going to come in here and they work here,

and they're going to ask for tools and stuff to work. I said, okay. You see all these butcher knives and stuff? Yeah, he goes, they'll have certain colored ID cards. Like my ID, you can't give me those butcher knives. And I'm like, what? You're in here with me. I can't give them to you.

You don't think? You're going to stab me or something with him? He goes, because we're high violent inmates. We can't have that. I'm like, okay. He goes, oh, the sugar, by the way, you need to put the sugar out right now. I'm like, oh, okay. Not paying, didn't know anything.

So I took all the sugar out and I put it in all the dining halls. As the day goes on, the cook comes to me and goes, hey, where's the sugar we need to put the sugar out? I'm like, what? Who's you need to put the sugar out? I go, I already put it out. No way. I go, yeah. Oh, they got you.

We don't have sugar is like gold in here. We don't have any more sugar. And you're the guy that put it out, and it's all gone. I go out and look, and it's all gone. All the boxes are empty. The inmate cooks took it all. Because they make pruno and stuff out of it, right? They're making their alcohol out of it.

So I felt stupid. That was my first day. They took advantage of the newbie. Yeah, it was bad. Hey, Lockton, listeners. Let me hit you with a question. question, what's the biggest scam you've fallen for? Maybe it was a shady deal on the inside. Maybe it was a too good to be true opportunity. But let me tell you, one of the biggest scams

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Don't let these companies hustle you. Take back control of your money with rocket money like I do. Now let's get back into today's episode. What did they, do they have a nickname for you? Like, I know new inmates are called like fish or different names like that. Did they have that for new guards? They call us fish. Okay.

Yeah, they call us fish or rookie. Something, you know, nothing, nothing extraordinary. Now, even in a violent or like a maximum security prison where it's like lockdown, they still have inmates coming out to cook and make the meals. for people. Yeah, you still had a couple, I think it was North Block. I can't remember what the other ones. You had some mainline inmates.

They were level four, but they could come out of their cells and walk and walk around. Were those individuals dangerous or did they like having that job and they didn't want to ruin it? They like having the job. They don't want to ruin it. They don't want any problems in there. But they're going to take as much advantage as they can. I mean, I would too. I don't blame nobody for doing what they did in there, you know.

So they had you there, by. yourself just in that chow hall working by myself in the second second day i had the same job and i go in there and we're serving we're serving uh breakfast and there's gunmen there's gun walks up and there's gunmen all over the place i think there's two or three and so all of a fight breaks out well then another fight breaks out out. And then another fight, now everybody's fighting. And I'm looking around and everybody's on the ground, except me. The other guards are on the ground. And one of the inmates goes, fish, get on the ground. You don't tell me what they? I'm, I'm the officer. And another guy goes, another inmate goes,

rookie, get on the ground. Right about then, they still had the metal trays back then. They weren't the yellow plastic ones. They were the steel metal ones. One goes flying by my head, Hicks the wall and boom, oh, damn. So I get on the ground. And the one inmate looks at me, you'll see, man, I tried to tell you, man. And then a few minutes later,

the gunmen, they had many 14s, started firing warning shots. We can hear them ricocheting off the walls. They didn't have, they eventually switched to glacier rounds, which would hit something and explode. And these rounds were just, you could hear them ricocheting off the walls.

I'm scared to death. I know. Well, all the other officers come in. They take care of everything. Everything gets going again. We start serving again. I mean, it was a while. But that was my second day.

And this all leads to I was going to quit. So my third day, I'm working North Block. And a few years before I started, they used to have tier tenders. Well, the tier tender inmates were given the keys to lock the cell doors up and stuff during lockup. And, well, they did. stopped that. But the officer I was working with on the third tier. One of the inmates needed his cell unlocked to go in and get something. So he hands the keys to the to the tier. They still had tier tenders. They weren't allowed to have the keys. And goes here, go go let him get what he needs and bring me the keys back. I don't say nothing. I'm the new guy. I'm like, I don't think you're supposed to do that. And so that that was kind of freaky. And then the one the one that, the one that, that got me was, was it my fourth or fifth day? They put me in the factory.

It was like they made mattresses out there. I can't remember what else they made. They had a name for it, but I can't remember it. In the feds we call the unicorn. Yeah, it's similar to that. It's a big warehouse where all the inmates would go to work and make whatever. And the place is huge.

There's two officers, me, me, being the new guy and then the old guy the old officer and back then we didn't have alarms you know we didn't have all we had was a whistle so the officer tells me hey go up there on the loft and tell them tell them all them inmates it's time to go you got head back for lockup i said okay so walk up the stairs it's it's dark up there you can hardly see anything and so yeah hey man let's go everybody's time to time log you we heard the buzzer Okay. Well, everybody gets up, starts going down the stairs, except three dudes.

And they're sitting on a bench way in the back. I mean, super far back. And I start walking to the stairs. I'm thinking in my head the whole time in the academy, they're telling you, don't let them punk you. Don't let them, you know, you got to stand up to the guys. And okay. So I go back. I said, hey, man, it's time to go.

They said, yeah. And they sat there. and I walked all the way back to the stairs thinking they were going to come behind me. Nope. So I walked all the way back. I said, hey, boy, it's time to go. Let's go. And they jumped up.

And the one guy, tall, skinny, black guy, walks by me and gets about a couple inches from me, just stares at me. Walks by. The second guy stands up, just shaking his head. And walks off. The third guy stands up. up huge. I don't know if you knew who Michael Duncan Clark was, but this guy was just gigantic. Muscles that coming out of his neck, just everything, tall too. And he walks up to him and he points at me. He doesn't touch me, but he points at me. He goes, you're lucky, you're new.

Like, excuse me? He goes, you're lucky, you're new. I'm like, well, why would I do? He goes, you don't call black people boys. And you call this boy. I'm like, oh, I didn't know. I said, I'm sorry, I apologize. He goes, like I said, you're lucky, you're new. You do that to us again? You're not leaving up here. The rest of the day, I'm going to quit.

I'm done. I'm going to quit. I don't want to work there. Terrified. So I got my weekend, went home, and the thing that got me, it's going to sound kind of sexist, But back then, back then they didn't have 3% at 50 where guys could retire early at 50, 55. So you had some people in their 60s still working, women in their 60s still working.

And they could still wear their skirts, the correctional officer skirts. They had women's skirts. And I remember a fight in the upper yard and whistles going off and gunshots going off. and I kind of froze. I was supposed to respond to it. I was working the rotunda. And I saw this older guy, I say oldish by my age now,

but older guy, go flying by running, and then two ladies with skirts, running towards the alarm, towards the gunshots. I'm like, huh, I'm 21 years old.

If they can do it, I can do it. I took off running, and I just stayed there after. that. That's what convinced me to stay there. How many years would you do later after that moment kind of foreshadowing that? Means at San Quentin? Yeah.

Like in general as a correctional officer. I worked at San Quentin until 92. And then in near the in the 91, 92, I had gotten in some trouble in the adjustment center where I wound up and worked my whole career at San Quentin. and I went to Solano State Prison, which is in Bacaville, and I hated it. And everyone told me I was going to hate it. I didn't. San Quentin, to me, was a real prison.

You had real convicts. You had real prison guards. And everyone says, you're going to go to Solano. You're going to hate it. You're going to hate it. We just call it Telano. I go to Salonzo, and I hated it. I've never had an inmate to another.

mate before. Never. And they're telling me, hey, so-and-so's not mopped on the floor. Okay, well, why are you telling me? Yeah, I don't know why you're telling me. You know, because if they don't mop it, you're going to mop it. Well, well, are you telling us to do something?

No, no, that's not what I'm saying. And they finally got the hint, and the guy shows up one day at the black eye and mopped the floor. That's how it worked at San Quentin. Solano, they, you know, at San Quentin, two times that I remember. I was new, and I was working the dorms and walking to the parking lot.

And there's two officers fist fighting in the parking lot. And I'm looking, and the other officers, ignore them. Just go to your car and leave. Like, what? Just ignore them. They'll work it out. Well, one of the officers told another officer about something. So they would fight in the parking lot. It actually happened twice,

because it happened in the lower parking lot, too. And then... It doesn't work like that. that anymore. No. And at Solano, they would tell on you, the officers would tell on you as much as the inmates would tell on you. And I hated that.

It's like, man, none of these people, they think they're tough, they think they're hard. They're saying, they say nothing. You guys are a bunch of punks. So you think if you never saw those two women running, you know, wouldn't have continued your career? Oh, yeah. I was ready to quit. Wow.

I was done. I'm going to go paint cars or something. Work on motorcycles. Was it standard for new guards to work in different areas throughout that first week? Like, I feel like if you're training someone properly, you would do like, okay, maybe a week at the Chow Hall, a week at this, a week at that. They do more of that now. Back then, you did have someone on the job training. You know, you'd go somewhere for a unit for four hours or something.

But nothing like they do now. And being a part-time employee, you were kind of like a sick really. person. If someone's sick, they would send you there. If someone, you know, had vacation, they'd send you there. And at San Quentin, there was so many officers and so many vacancies that you, while you're a part-time employee, you would work all over. Or a vacation relief officer would work all the people when there were people on vacation. So even back in the 80s staffing was still an issue? Yes. Wow, so nothing's really changed. It's always forever been an issue. You would have thought they'd know about this years ago, because staffing's, you know, bad now.

Right. If it was bad 30, 40, 50 years ago, why they didn't do anything about it then to kind of fix it? Yeah, I don't know. I think they just, they always trying to play catch up and, you know, you get, and they'll get fully staffed and then it stops overtime. And then the officers went overtime because you get good money overtime. But San Quentin was cool. I liked that. I like the history.

I worked the adjustment. Center at San Quentin, which was the worst of the worst for the state at the time. I don't mean to sound like, you know, I hate when people get out of here and they're badass or something. That's not me at all, you know? I love what a listener comes on the show that actually listens to the show. It's fun. But I don't want to sound like that, but it's, if we had problems with the inmates in the adjustment center, we'd send them to Foray and Folsom. 4A.m. Folsom had a problem with the inmates that sent to us to the adjustment center.

But I'm going to get lunches one day for the adjustment center. I'm going to the child hall. And in the upper yard, there's a big group of inmates, correctional officers, everybody just screaming and yelling. And I look up and the gunmen are just standing there. What is going on? So I walk him and I go, what's going on? One of the inmates is going to go, oh, Sergeant Bonomi's kicking around. Russell's ass.

We're like, what? Sergeant and officer fist fighting in the upper yard, San Quentin, with lieutenants and sergeants watching. And then a captain, he was, I think his name was Captain Etterveria starts walking up the upper yard. And they went, hey, yeah, break it up. You know, then it was, then it changed. Nothing like that would ever have in the Solano.

The officer would be too scared. You know, rightfully so. You don't want to get fired or nothing. Like Sergeant Russell lost his stripes. He bounced down to an office. sir. You know, but and so

about from 86 to 92, so at Solano I started looking for another job and then I left there in 94. And to become a cop? Yeah, to become a cop.

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Richmond. Now walk us through a day at the Adjustment Center. Adjustment Center. Like, what time do you get in? What was your typical shift? And what would you do all day? The Adjustment Center, we'd start at 6 in the morning. so it was 6 to 2

and you'd do bar checks so you'd pick and it was three tiers and held 104 inmates and you would pick a tier or a floor

actually it was floors a floor and a side and that's you're going to do bar checks and what you're going to do is you're going to pull all the inmates out one at a time maybe we didn't

I can't remember if we did it like in groups I think it was two or three at a time and then you'd take like a putty knife and check all the bars with the putty knife make sure no one's cutting through the bars and they had security screens on them too because they had stab you through the screens

and they put them back and then you would start running yard graveyard shift had already fed breakfast or they were in the middle of feeding breakfast when you got there and you start running yard and depending on what group goes to yard it was either

like the northern Mexicans and the white boys or southern Mexicans and BGF I can't remember if I have that straight but it's been so long since I worked there but you had groups and they're all gangs BGF

Crips couldn't go with the BGF Nortenos couldn't go with the Southerners and so you'd run yard and once they're out in the yard there's three separate yards back then and you had two gunmen and we were done with the yard

then you start running an appointment saying they had to go to the hospital or dentist a lot of them or attorney visits or any kind of interviews you know so you'd do that and then you'd feed lunch

and we used to all the inmates would get All the inmates would get a dessert in their lunch, like a pie or something. And I'm going to dry snitch on myself right now. But you would take, we took the desserts out, so they wouldn't get them. And we'd use them to have the inmates do stuff for us, like clean the showers. Or they did something decent for us. We'd give them to them as rewards.

And then if there used to be this guy. Frank. I still talk to Frank. I talked to Frank September. So Frank would clean my showers for me, and I'd give him the pies, and I'd give him extra lunches or extra stuff when it came time to serve the lunches. Well, the guy next to him saw me do it one day. So now I'm having to give it to both of them, so he don't tell on us about me giving it to him. And Frank doesn't want nobody to know that he cleans the showers for me. You know, so it just kind of evolved into, eventually they, someone filed a complaint. And me and G. Rod, Guillermo Rodriguez, we ran the first floor in the adjustment center. We're like, we don't know nothing about desserts.

And the associate warden at the time wanted to see under the stairs. So someone told that they were under the stairs. And it sounds funny because they never used to, yeah, I just went through. They never told on us. But inmates, you know, they had tell on the officer if they could because they wanted their desserts. We open it and she looks in there and there's two boxes of just dessert. So I'm like, I don't know how those got there. And that is eventually why I wound up and went to Solano.

And that associate warden became the warden at Solano. So when I put in the transfer, because they were going to give me a different job. job. I'm 28 years old. I think I'm king shit, right? I'm not going to, if I can't work where I want to work, I'll just go work closer to home because I lived in Bakuville at the time. And so I put in for a transfer and she's not going to give you a job. She hates us in here. So I applied and I talked to her on the phone and I got picked up at Solano and transferred. So she took me still. Now, the inmates, a typical day for them, were they in their cells all day except for rec? They were in their cells all day unless they were, I'm sorry, let me, I forgot that part. If they're on the yard, they're on the yard all day. If they're not on the yard, then it's their shower day, and we'd have to run them to shower. And it took three people to take one inmate to the shower.

So two officers, the inmate had to be handcuffed, and you had to have your batons out. and then the guy at the front, the adjustment center, it was a bar box, there's three levers that you had to go through to open one door. The door would slide open. And that's at the end of the tier? Yeah, yeah. So you would just holler down, you know, 6'4 or, you know, whatever it is, whatever the cell number was. The showers were at the front, just there's a sally port, like two gates, and then the shower,

and then all the cells. And then, so if they weren't on the yard, then they took the shower. then they took the showers, you know, and you just run the whole tier for the showers unless they were out in an appointment. Yeah, this is exactly how was laid out in the Danbury solitary confinement in federal prison that I was in. It's three tiers. It's kind of like Alcatraz, three tiers, the old system with the bars, the shower at the end. Would they do one man to a cell or two? One.

Just one? Just one. Now, was a yard, another cage or was it an actual big yard? It was like caged off yards. I mean, they were pretty, they weren't huge, but they were somewhat big. Now they have them in cages. They've really changed a lot. But it was a big open yard.

And multiple inmates would be able to interact with each other? Yeah. Wow. So even though they were in the same group, same gang or whatever. Okay. Was there any ever, you know, fights out there within their same game? Oh, yeah, all the time. sometimes we'd put sometimes you'd make a mistake and so we had the the southern

southern yard out there and this guy we were take the it was a new officer and somebody else was taking someone to the yard and me and grod were like i don't think it's his yard day and so none of the inmates said nothing he didn't say anything and so we opened the door he goes out I turn and look, and I'm starting to write his name down, and I turn to G-Roy, I go, hey, man, grab him. That's not him. It's not his yard day. And then the gunshots went off.

Boom, boom. They had put him on the yard as soon as he got unhandcuffed on the yard. They started going at it. Wow. And so we pull him back off. Ask him, man, why did you go out there? So I ain't no punk. I got to show up.

I got to show up for my team. You can put me out there with him. I'm going to fight him. Can I give them credit for that? I give them all kinds of credit. What do you think about prison gangs and the politics behind it? I think when you're in there, I've had friends in there, I think they do what they need to do to survive and get by. And you're going to hang with your own, I mean, and help each other out.

They're trying to intermix them now, and they're just having problems out here in California anyways. Do you think there's something that the war does? or the upper, you know, higher-ups could have done to prevent all these prison gang politics that exist in today's world? I'm not sure if they could because it's so embedded in some of these guys. A lot of these guys just grew up there in prison and they go, you know, they get out and go home and they raise their sons that way. And it just, and there's a lot of good people in prison that just made them a mistake. Like, oops. I'm going to do that again

You know And there's some that need to stay in there forever I think It allowed me to learn a lot about people You know And Frank Frank for instance

And I had Back up a minute We had fame bro on the first floor So we had Charles Manson Richard Ameris the Knight Stalker The alphabet Bomber got bombed the L.A. airport And they were, they really weren't like, I mean, they were kind of scary when you talk to them, but they weren't mean or scary or, you know, nothing like you see on TV or anything.

But I forgot I was going with that. But, and they had all the gang members, you know, that were in there. And even some of them guys were decent. They were respectful. You know, they were, I call them real convicts. It probably sounds bad, but you had real convicts and you have punk inmates. Why do you think some of these individuals can do horrific things to people, innocent people, and be so, like, well-behaved normal inside like that to you?

Man, I don't know why. They're crazy. I remember talking to Richard Ramirez, the Nightstocker, and he just, he would tell you stories because we'd put them in the holding cage sometimes, the hold and he just kind of talk and BS with him. And he had no emotion to any of it. And it wasn't him though, was his friend. His close friend did all this stuff, not him.

You know, he tells a story of his friend breaking into a house in San Francisco. And once he's in there, he realizes there's a large party going on. And there's nothing, he can't do what he wants to do. So he's hiding in the closet because he can't get back. across the hallway to go out the window he came in. And eventually after about a couple hours, he got out and got out of the house. Well, the thing that trips me up a little bit about it is to this day, there's a family in San Francisco who had Richard Ramirez, who's killed 14 people by then hiding in their closet and they have no idea.

They have no idea of the state that he was in there. And I don't know why I think that's weird, but I think it's weird. Now, these types of guys, how do you guys treat them as officers? Like the Richard, Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez, do you guys look at them differently, like, from a security standpoint? Yeah, I mean, they were in the adjustment center, so they were the highest security you could go anyways. Anytime you escorted them, you had to have two officers with them. but we were so busy in there running yard, running showers, running lunches.

You just didn't give it a whole lot of thought. You know, there's so much so there was a guy, Billy Ray Hamilton, who wanted a razor to shave his body, right? Well, I'm not thinking. I'm just thinking of going home. Okay, all right, Billy, I'll get it to you. I'll get it to you. Well, I forgot.

And I left. The next day, we're running yard, and it's his turn to go to the yard. And we noticed all this stuff in his cells packed up. That usually means something's going to happen on the yard, and they're going to go in the back in the quiet cells with the solid doors, right? That we weren't supposed to close, but some officers did. But didn't think much of it. Get to the Salli port.

The door closes. And before, before G-Rogg could open the other door, he's out of the handcuffs and trying to punch me. So we're fighting. This guy can fight. This guy is skinny, linky guy, kind of an AB-type guy. So we get him handcuffed, throw him in the quiet cell, move all this stuff. And the next day is serving lunches. I'm going to give him his lunch

He goes, hey, hey, Monahan, what? He was, I did pretty good yesterday, huh? Like, what do you mean? I did pretty good. It took four of you to get me back in handcuffs. I'm like, dude, what was that about? I don't understand. What, would I do wrong?

So remember the day before you wouldn't give me my razor and you went home? He said, yeah, I got busy. It was all, everybody started giving me crap on the tier. I have to do something. Oh, okay. That's cool. No hard feelings. I get it. I understand. No big deal. And I just didn't let it bother me because if you do, you drive yourself nuts. What are conversations with Charles Manson Lake?

Charlie was in and out, I would say. He's kind of weird. He'd call me Irish. My nickname was Irish. And he would say, you dig all the time. He was at San Quentin for my tier for three or four years before he went back to Corcoran. and he was more normal than you see on TV other than the language he would use you know he always say man a lot and you dig man you can't and he had have birds or ants come into a cell and he'd feed him and we'd try to clean it up hey man don't don't be killing my pets man Irish don't be hurting my pets hi Charlie but you got to clean you can't it's gross you know they can't have none of these other dudes want the ants in their cell I know I know, I know. And then I remember I'd taken him to an interview once, I forget what news channel it was. I took him there, me and me and another Mario Gates, we took him there.

And he does all this weird kung fu stuff, you know, in front of the cameras in front of the thing. And we're walking back. He's, hey, Irish, how'd I do? I'm like, what do you mean? Because how did I do? I did pretty good. I gave him what they wanted. Yeah, Charlie. I said, I don't know how you do that. I, I'd worry about that stuff. Oh, man, Irish. You can't worry about things, man. You only hear once. Just live your life. So life advice from Charles Manson. Don't worry about it. But he didn't, he wouldn't, he would talk, but it wasn't much of any substance if that makes sense. Who would visit him? All kinds of different people would visit him. A lot of women. Yeah, a lot of women. Sometimes you

wouldn't go to the visit because he figured it was just somebody else wanting to, you know, news press or something. Did you ever read his mail? Yeah, he'd read his mail. He'd get a lot of mail. He'd tell stories about the Beach Boys. He knew Dennis Wilson and, and it was kind of a funny story with Charlie Manson. He could sing and play a guitar really good.

He just could. And he had a little character to him, you know. And so when the lieutenant was gone on the weekends, we would let Charlie out and come in the holding cage and get his guitar from the back. He had a guitar in the property room. Give him his guitar, and he would sit and play his guitar and sing. And he'd sit and sing for us and play the guitar.

We can only do it for certain times because sometimes we need the holding cage to run yard and all that stuff. And then we put him back in a cell. Well, it's about 1.30, and I'm going home. at two o'clock. And his cell's all the way at the end. And he's yelling, Irish. Irish, come down here.

I'm like, what? I'm going home, Charlie. No, come down here, man. Come down here. All right. So me and Mario go down there. I'm like, what's up? He hands me this card that he drew.

And he says, here, give this to your wife for her birthday. I'm like, what? I go Charlie how you know it's her birthday Oh man I just know things you dig I go Charlie how do you know it's her birthday And he just put his head down And kind of like oh man I'm like dude

Charlie I'm not going to leave here until you tell me How you know it's her birthday He was all right you really want to know yeah Remember I was in the holding cage Yeah Because you went right there in the office Picked up the phone and called her And told her happy birthday

I'm like oh okay Because we didn't have cell phone phones were nothing back then those are the other phones we had i'm like okay so he's paying attention he's always paying attention to everything that's going on you know that kind of it freaked me out until he told me how he learned it was her birth this june the world comes to los angeles kick off fiefa world cup 2026 at the fiefa fan festival of the iconic los angeles memorial coliseum watch matches live on giant screen feel every goal with thousands of fans and celebrate with music culture and flavors from around the

World. Join us June 11th through 14th opening weekend as the tournament kicks off in Los Angeles. Tickets are just $10 and kids under 12 or free. Get yours now at Los Angeles FWC26.com. Do you want to show the audience the card? I can. If you want, if you're comfortable with it. Yeah. Probably not you're supposed to have it. Well, I mean, I think the statute of limitations is pretty past by now. I hope so. Yeah. It is pretty crazy. crazy that someone like that wrote you a card. You know, it's probably worth a fortune. Yeah, I don't know. I wonder about that. I just showed up to that camera right there. That's crazy. That was the birthday card.

Did you give it to her or you kept this to yourself? I took her home and just kind of kept it. I told her about it. What did she say when? Oh, she just, she thought, I don't want that. That's definitely a first on the show. That's freaky. Did you ever like do research on them and ask them specific questions or you didn't care? No, not really.

I just didn't care. Do you think guys like that when they're at that stage are just freely talking about whatever because they want to get it off their chest? I think some do. Some, I think, convince themselves that they didn't do what they did. Like the Richard Romier's? Yeah, like Richard Romero. He put it off onto somebody else when he'd tell the stories. There's some that accept responsibility for what they did.

They're just doing their time and want to go home. There was a guy, I want to say his name was Stanley. Smart guy, super smart. Very, most people would like him. But he was going to federal court in San Francisco, and we held him as a federal inmate, safekeeper. And they'd come get him and transport him back and forth. Well, they suspected him of over 40 bank robberies. Well, he was so smart, he was his own lawyer.

And so he got to keep all the evidence. And it's funny because one time I'm walking by and he goes, Monahan, Monaghan, come here. He goes, look at this picture for me. I'm like, what? He goes, they're trying to say this is me. And it's a guy standing on the bank counter with a small, sawed-off shotgun holding it to the head of a security guard.

And he's got this like nylon hoses over his head, like a mask. but, you know, women's, women's leggings. And I go, yeah. He goes, what? I go, dude, that's you. You can see it's you. No way, really? Come on, man.

He got mad at me. I'm like, you asked me, that's you. Oh, all right, I'm going to have to think of something else. He's so smart. He's trying to think of his case on how to get out of some of these. But talking to him, he said, yeah, I did some of them. And I said, what was the mistake? He was, we didn't even need the money.

He was fine. I would do a couple and be set. This was back when banks held money in the banks. And he had a partner. And they would do them up and down around the USA. And here in the U.S., he was our mistake. So we took on a third person. Took on the third person, hit a bank.

Him and my partner got caught. My partner doesn't say it word. They don't find anything on them. nothing, and the other one told on both of them. Wow. That's where they're going to court. Well, that's what they say, the best crimes that you don't get caught for are the ones you do alone. Right, right.

You know, you can never involve someone else. Right. What did these cells look like in the block you worked on? Like, what was in there? What were some of the commissary items they could get, if anything? Well, the way the Adjustment Center worked at that time, now it's inhumane, apparently. They would get in trouble in a regular security. housing unit, they would assault staff or another inmate or something. And they would come to us

and they started on the first floor. And you look in the cell, it's not very big. I don't forget what they are, six by 12 or something. The bed is a concrete bed, just built into the cell with a mattress on top of it. And then the toilet is your typical steel toilet with the sink on top. And the first floor, all they got was a sheet, a blanket, underwear, and I think maybe half a toothbrush. But they didn't get blues yet. We'd have to give them blues when they went to the yard. And that changed my first year I was there to where they could have blues in their cell and stuff. And a couple inmates at the end, like Charlie and them, they could have normal stuff.

A soap bar soap. If they did decent for a while there, then they'd go. to the second floor where they could get another pair of blues, another blanket, and some of their personal items, TV, radio, if someone wanted to send it to them. They did good there. They'd go to the third tier. In the third tier, they could have everything they could have in any of the security housing unit. A TV and a radio, their clothes, some of their property from the property room. they did get there, then they would go back out to a security housing unit. I call them regular security housing units. Not that there was one, but...

So no mattress for those bottom floors? Oh, no, they had a mattress. Okay, on top of that. Yeah. But the guys on the bottom floor, they would only be allowed in boxers, no t-shirt or pants. Right. Wow. But that changed within the first, probably six months or so I was there.

Was it cold or hot in there? It's cold. A.C. or... No, it was just... It was just cold. All the windows broke. Just like on TV, you see that they wouldn't fix the windows. And all the tiers had the cement beds.

It's an old unit. A lot of history to it. Would you know why each individual inmate was sent there? Yeah. What was the most, like, horrific one, a reason for someone to go there that you read? Stabbing an officer. Stabbing him several times, cutting his neck.

And then the officers in there, Jamie Aleos, was running a shower with the guy, and the guy reached through the food port and sliced Jamie O'Leos' neck open. I wasn't working that day, but I remember coming to work and Olaos was off. Like, what happened? Oh, a little Jaime used to cut his neck. Because they would get a razor at that. Yeah, yeah. So it was different there.

It was a lot of history, and I like the history. And I was lucky enough to work at the time that people, part of the history, still worked there. Like Sergeant Wordy was a sergeant since 1955, and this is 1986. And he finally retired after I left, and then he passed away shortly after that. That was his whole life. How do you think corrections has changed? Like, do you think it's a lot different than what it was back then? Yeah.

Why do you? It's a lot softer, if that makes sense. It's a, they give them more stuff thinking they're going to, they're going to be a better person or their behavior will be better. And sometimes they do. Sometimes it works. But I have a theory with all of it, with the whole world, or at least the U.S. The softer we are with stuff, the worst things get. And that's prisons, crime, anything.

And I challenge people to just tell me one law. I just want to know one. I'm sure there's one out there. I don't know what it is. Or one restriction that's put on the police that has reduced crime. In my head, the answer is zero because I have never seen it. And what do you mean by restriction? Give us an example.

Like not be able to take person. into jail for misdemeanors anymore. In California, you can't do it anymore. You got to give them a citation and let them go. And then after so many citations, then they go to jail. But they get a court date. So that's one thing. Being a police officer is extremely hard.

And making an arrest or fighting with somebody looks terrible on video. It just, there's no. Nice way to do it. Because they play one part. Right. It's never what happened. Granted, there are some situations where it's wrong. I've seen some videos and I'm going, whoa, I do needs to go to prison.

You know? But a lot of them, they only pull the one part. And there's no nice way to arrest somebody unless you want to get hurt. You know, if you want to get hurt, then you can dilly-dally around and, you know, argue with the guy. But that's not what we're there for. we're there to take you to jail. And this is coming from a guy. I didn't like a lot of cops.

I just, to me, it was kind of a job. And you could tell the difference of people that it's their life. It's like, that's who they are, man. I'm a cop. It's like, yeah, you're really nothing, man. But, you know, that's what you want to do. And so I didn't like those kind of cops. And, uh, uh, uh, july.

jumping around a little bit, but like fighting. I remember going to a call of domestic violence when I was in patrol. I wasn't in patrol a whole long at Richmond. And I just fast forward us, but we'll clean it up. I go in there and I ask the girl, the lady, did he hit you? No, and I look over at him and he's a big guy. And I look at the TV and he's watching TV. He's watching UFC fights.

I look, and it's him. I'm like, is that you? Is that you on TV? He goes, yeah. He's, well, I'm getting ready for another fight, you know, so I'm watching the films. Oh, okay. And he stands up, and he's huge. And this night we're super busy.

We've already had, always already had two shootings, one homicide. I remember that because everybody was tied up. And I remember taking that call by myself, thinking, oh, I'll be okay. And I tell him, hey, if I have to come back here and, you know, something happens to your wife, you're probably going to have to go to jail. I know, I know. And he had been drinking. And this is where I get into where, you know, we're not there to fight you. So I leave.

I'm shagging calls. I'm going bouncing around because nobody's, nobody's available. Well, that call comes out again. Hey, you know, I forget what the code was, but this, what's going on, this address. I don't have a cover. It's 10.4. I'll get out. I'll take it. As I'm getting closer. I'm thinking, well, wait a minute.

I said, call El Cerrito and have an officer from El Cerrito come over to the city next door. And they're pretty far away. And they said, 10.4. So I go, knock on the door. She opens the door. She's got bloody lip. Her eyes all messed up. And I walk in and he's pacing in his chair.

And I'm like, hey, man. he was last name was silver It wasn't the big famous Fight or Silva back then But I go You have to go to jail, man He's like, no I'm not going to jail

I'm like yeah I said unfortunately man you have to I told you before I left And he's like no I'm not going to jail I said okay So I'm thinking in my head What do I do?

I'm still fairly new as a cop I'm like, man, I said, okay. And then he pipes up and goes, I can kick your ass. Hmm, what do I do? I'm, I'm a big guy, but I'm not, I can't, you know, can't fight like that guy, right? And so I'm like, okay. And so, we'll check this out. I'm trying to think real fast.

I go, my job's not to fight you, man. My job's to take you to jail. So if you don't want to go, I can get about six or seven guys over here. and then we can fight you and you can go to jail and you get more charges put on you or you can just come with me right now we'll walk outside

I'll put the handcuffs on you outside so your kids don't see and go to jail and deal with it and he's looking down and he looks up and he goes you know what? I never thought of it that way okay I'll go to jail

and I'm thinking who I'm so lucky I want to fight nobody not that guy and so I took him to jail That's funny. Yeah. Did being working corrections before you became a cop help you, do the job better?

Big time. Why do you think that? I think working the prisons, like I said, there's a lot of good people in there. Good people that you would be friends with, you know, that they just made a mistake. And you realized that just because they have a gun with them or did something, it doesn't make them. a piece of dirt on earth, you know, so you just treat them like respect. I learned how to talk to people and treat people. You know, not that I'm all that, I just, it just do.

You know, and I think that every police officer should go work in a jail or a prison. Or maybe even the military. Yeah, I heard one of you guys on here say that, and I agreed with them 100%. I just feel like they work there before they work the street. There's too many young cops fresh off the job, like a town like mine, Danbury. There's guys that are younger than me that are getting into policing. I've probably seen more real-life experience being in prison myself than they have and they're given all this power with a gun and a badge.

Right. It's totally different, you know? And I feel like that could get to their head. It does. You can see it in them. Myself as a cop could see it. Other cops that are just like, man, you're messed up. You can't, you can't.

They usually learn within the first few years. They usually, you know, they get their face smacked or something happens to them where they will, And then I'm going to listen to me just say I got a badge and I got to talk to them different. But there's a lot of them that their whole life like that. Yeah, because it does teach you the respect thing. And I wonder if, like, if someone ran the stats and did the research on how many cops that have a, you know, like a military or correctional background are the cops that do do the bad things that we read and see on social media, you know, if there is any. Right. Because it's just a different demeanor about the whole thing.

Right. Now, I feel like you're the perfect person to ask us to you. What's the difference and definition between a convict and an inmate? To me, a convict is somebody like Frank. He accepted what he did. He's dealing with it. He has respect for everybody. But he's also hardcore.

He's not going to let nobody push him around. No other inmates are done. That's why Frank was in the adjustment center. And they don't tell on anybody. I don't know why I had an issue with that, but they would not tell on somebody to get the advantage over something else or to reduce their crime or their sentence for their crime. They would just do their time and come out.

And then you have inmates that will do whatever they can not to go to prison, which is fine. You got to legally, that's fine, but don't tell on everybody. so you get less time to go to prison. Own up to what you did. Have respect. We would, coming from the prison,

going to the street, we would chase somebody and catch them. And I don't want to say we'd tune them up or nothing because he didn't really, you didn't beat nobody. People always say that.

It's not. But, you know, you might land on them a little hard, you know, and handcuff them. And I used to call them convicts. The convicts would always apologize to you in the elevator. Hey man, sorry.

Sorry, I ran. I said, want to go back to prison. You know, I had the gun, and I didn't, I knew I was going to get arrested for it, you know. And then the, the more or less, punks or inmates, I want to see your sergeant. I'm going to complain, you know, you twisted my wrist. Well, yeah, if you didn't run from me, you probably wouldn't happen. But that's inmates and convicts. it's almost like a generational thing. You know, the old time just wanted to do their time

and get out and go home. Or the lifers, they knew they were in there for life, so they didn't want any problems either. They were the easiest guys to work with. Because their conditions can always get worse. Right. Right. Just some people would think they have a lot,

they don't have anything to lose, but there are the things that make their everyday life, you know, a little bit easier in there. Right. Right. How long were you? What were you going to say? No, go ahead. How long were you a police officer for?

And what was the highest rank you got to? I was a police officer about 21 years, almost 22 years. And I retired out as a lieutenant. And I had kind of a dream career as a police officer, too. I had it great at St. Quentin working adjustment. If you worked in the Adjustment Center, you were somebody. And you would strut around like I work in the Adjustment Center. It sounds stupid now.

Look at it back on it. You were handpicked to work in there. So I had it good in there until me and Rodriguez got in trouble and they're going to send us out. Oh, because of some desserts. Well, it was desserts. And then this guy got, this guy got accidentally hit with the door. He had kicked some officers come in from yard. And then when I closed the door, it accidentally closed too soon and smashed them.

And so we were all in trouble for that. Rightfully so. And I didn't really, I never treated inmates bad. Not at all. There's no reason to, especially in that unit. You know, there's no reason to treat anybody bad. But then I went to Slano for a couple years and hated it. And I went to Richmond and had a dream career in Richmond.

I almost didn't want to retire. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium. wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistance assistants assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Do you like policing? I liked what I did. from the story I told you from the beginning about being the snitch, it was probably the worst you could be. You know, I went to Richmond. I was a police officer for, I was in patrol for about a year, maybe a little over a year.

And then I got selected to be on the street narcotics team, which we rode dirt bikes. Wow. There was eight of us on a dirt bike. And back then you didn't have I think you had pagers But you didn't have cell phones So you had the dope dealer still on the corners And Richmond

Richmond California is I don't have you heard of Oakland California Of course yeah Pretty bad Richmond's just as bad Smaller But uh And so a lot of guns

A lot of shootings I think we had 64 homicides one year Of a population of 100,000 people That's you know more than one a week for a small city. But the dirt bikes, they call us biker boys. And that way we could just chase people.

We could chase them downstairs, through the apartments. We could sneak up on people. People selling dope. We get calls so they're selling dope. So we would hide in a parking lot or something and look down with binoculars and watch them and see where they're hiding their dope.

Then we'd swoop around on them. There's a, Funny story about being a biker boys was, I think it was fourth in Maine. We could never catch these guys. And we knew them all. We knew their names and so. And it was, it was, you built respect for each other, you know, you just, you just did. It's weird.

But I want, we wanted to catch these guys so bad. And we had heard they just got a new, they just, they just, what's the word? I'm trying to think. They just got a new supply of crack. Crack was huge back then. And there's probably seven of them out there. We're trying to devise this plan to catch them. Because when you're riding, people would yell, 5-0, 5-0, or a whistle.

And we can never get close. I said, so let's come from different directions in this place. So you three go down this street, you three go down that street? I'm going to go down this street. And they're under the carport of this apartment building. And I want to catch them so bad. I come flying in there. and I'm going too fast.

And I hit my brakes. I fall. My bike slides up right in between all of them. And I'm laying on my back and they're all looking down at me. And nobody's coming. They're taking too long. Well, they all run. And this one guy, Phil, he comes running back.

Inmate, or not an inmate, but I still called him inmates for some reason. but he was, you know, a crook. Suspect, yeah. Suspect. Comes running back and looks and goes, Monahan, you okay? Yeah, I'm going to be okay. And I'm trying to get up.

He's okay, I got to get this. And he reaches down and grabs his gun that he dropped on the ground, picked his gun up and took off running. And I'm just sitting there like, oh, my God. I can't believe it was happening. That's funny. Yeah, but, you know, he came and checked on me and still took his gun and ran.

When you retired, did you miss it? Like, one day you're a cop, and then the next day you're a cop, you're not. What's that feeling like? I... After so long in law enforcement. Yeah, I didn't miss it. I didn't miss it the first six months or year. But then when you realize you're nobody, you're not...

I had the coolest lieutenant job you could ever have. And when you're not that... You're not Lieutenant Monaghan anymore. You're going, man, what do I do now? You know? And the good thing for me was I had a... the business in Bacaville going, so I kind of ran that, kept me busy, kept my head out of it. So everybody at the gym just called me Big D instead of Lieutenant Monaghan.

Some of the guys at the gym would still call me Lieutenant Monaghan. But my job at Richmond is after I was working the dirt bikes, then I went to undercover narcotics. That must have been fun. Playing clothes. And that was fun. There's a bunch of all kinds of stories with that. Give us your best on. Undercover story?

The best undercover story was I'm buying dope. I'm buying meth from these Hispanics that are connected to the cartel out of a, there's always some kind of slim, slim connection. How real it is, I don't know, you know, everybody makes stuff up. Every drug dealer's connected to the cartel. Right, exactly. And so the first buy I did, I had a Harley as my undercover vehicle. So I rode up on my Harley

And met him in a parking lot in the van They got in the van I was just buying an ounce of meth And he goes He was a crook His name was Ben He'd you got a gun I said yeah I got a gun

I'm stupid coming here He's man put your gun on the floor I'm like okay I put my gun on the floor And he puts his on the floor And he sells me It sells me an ounce He's okay

now everything's good. So what do you want next? I said, I don't know. I'll get a whole deal. Well, we were working with the time with the FBI, the task force, and the DEA, and they were supplying some of the money

for us to show them. So I order up, I do another buy in the van of a pound of meth. Again, on my Harley, I buy a pound, and I leave. And now I order five pounds. And my cover was it's for somebody else. It's not for me.

I'm just the middleman buying it and making a little bit of money. So we set it all up in these apartments in the ghetto in Richmond. And we had pagers. She paged me and I went to the phone and called him. He goes, hey, man, I'm all set. Well, we had surveillance set up on the place. We had a SWAT team ready to move in. And FBI was having a fit because I was going to take the money with me upstairs.

They don't want, they don't want, they don't want, they don't want, they hate when you show the money. It's their money. So I have Ben come down and look at the money in the trunk of the car. And they had a fit about that, the FBI. And they're, they're, I don't hear it because I don't have a radio. But they're telling all my partner, tell them, you get out of there. God, we're done. Well, everything went fine.

We go back upstairs. Well, Ben, the crook, he's mad at me. I'm like, what, he goes, why do you have that fancy car? You can't be driving another neighborhood. The fancy car is a BMW 6 series or whatever. I said, it's not mine. It's Marks. They live in Marin.

It's the cheapest car they have. What am I going to do? It's not my money. All right. So we go upstairs. I'm pretty comfortable at this point. There's kids in there. His wife's there.

His brother's there. Let's go in the bedroom. So I go back in the bedroom. And he's got two pounds. What are you doing, man? He goes, we'll take the two and pay me. And then I'll get the other. they're three.

Like, no, man, can't do that. He's like, what do you mean? I said, the deal is for all five. Again, it's not my money. It's somebody else's. I don't want them pissed off, just like you don't want to. Man. Okay.

So I leave. And now the FBI was having to fit again. What are you leaving the dope there for? You can't do that. Well, I did. We're going to get five, you know. We're going to get a big. Time goes on.

While they're doing surveillance, they're telling me, hey, all the kids are leaving. The wife's leaving. They're pulling some carpet upstairs. Hmm. Okay. And I'm listening to this, right? I'm sitting in a car waiting. Find the pager goes off.

So I call him. He goes, hey, Dave. I went by Dave. Yeah, what's up? Hey, well, we have. I have it. It's all here. I'm like, okay.

So I asked the case. stage. I go, did anybody else show up? He was, no, nobody else showed up. He just made everybody leave. I'm like, whoa. Now I don't feel comfortable. This ain't cool, right?

So, I have real long hair and a beard. And, you know, I'm a white guy in a Hispanic and black neighborhood, you know, so I feel uncomfortable anyhow. And I go back, I'm nervous. And I tell Mark, I go, man, I don't know about this. He was my partner at the time driving the car. So I get out And I don't go upstairs

I wait And finally abandon his brother I can't remember his brother's name He winds up and gets killed over this But uh Comes downstairs And he's like What are you doing?

Come upstairs bring the money I'm like no man It's not Do you have Do you have all five pounds up there? I know he doesn't But I can't tell him I know he doesn't right

He goes oh man's coming It's on this way I said, all right, we'll just hang out. It's okay, yeah, we can hang out here. They're coming. It's coming. Like, okay. Well, these two moops pull up, we call them mobs.

These two Hispanic guys pull up, you know. I don't think they were citizens, but, I mean, but two Hispanic guys pull up. And Ben looks at me and goes, okay, it's here now. Let's go upstairs. Like, okay. So those two guys go up first. and then Ben and his brother go up and I'm behind them. And I walk in and the carpet's laying on the, in the living room.

There's a AK-47 sitting on the kitchen counter. I walk in the bedroom. There's a handgun on the pillow and a shotgun on the bed. And I'm thinking I'm going to get ripped off or killed. I'm like, wow. And so Ben's brother throws the two. pounds that were originally there on the bed and then the other two guys pull out the other three pounds and put it on the bed the whole time i'm thinking we're gonna get killed i just said him and he's like

okay now go get the money and bring the money up and you can take the dope you can take the stuff he can call dope but i'm like okay i'll go get the money well our bus signal was like Alex's going to like this or something. So I'm coming down the stairs and I'm saying the bus signal. Alex's going to like this. Alex's going to like this. Nobody's coming.

Ben goes, what did you say? I said, Alex, he didn't like this. Why? I thought you said his name was Mark. I said, well, yeah, Mark's in the car. I'm trying to think fast now because I just blew it, right? Mark's in the car. Alex is the guy in Marin that's going to.

No, you said his name was something else. So, man, do you want the money or not? Let's go get it. So as we get to the car, the SWAT team pulls up. Everybody takes off running. I get thrown on the ground and handcuffed. The two moaps or the two Hispanic guy, God, I guess, stop saying that. They get thrown on the ground and handcuffed.

And the main two crooks get away. We forgot to put somebody else on the other side. Street. They jumped the fence and they're gone, right? Well, we get the dope, we get all the guns. I think I showed you the picture, right? Yeah. That was like one of my biggest, biggest real undercover things.

But no crook. Damn. Well, about three or four months ago by, we hear that Ben's brother, the cartel, killed him in Mexico. He was originally set this up with another guy, and then they pulled me in. is undercover. And so he got killed no longer there. Probably about, probably not a year. One of my partners calls me on,

we had next tells back then. You click, right? We're high tech now. And he says, hey, hey, Darren, what are you doing? So I'm just typing in the office. Come to this gas station at 23rd, and I forget what the street was, you know, Virginia or something. And he goes, I think.

Ben's here getting gas in his truck. Like, really? He goes, yeah, and I had a Cadillac back then. Still long hair, beard, drove the old Cadillac. So I go flying over there as fast as I could. I come pulling in there, and he's almost done getting gas because he had went in the store and did some stuff. So I get out of my car, and he looks at me and goes,

what's up, Dave? He goes, hey, Ben, how are you doing? He goes, I'm surviving. And I go. He goes, I'm going to go to jail, huh? I go, yeah. You're going to go to jail. So he takes off.

And we go after him. And he goes, I want to go home and say goodbye to my wife and kids. I get emotional. So we go down there. We catch him. Just before he's walking in the house. And he goes Handcuff him

Put him in the car And then he asked me If he was taken by his wife And kids I said yeah There's less is all been Wow So he didn't end up getting killed then His brother did but Ben

Oh the brother did Yeah Okay Last I heard And those were the two guys That escaped Wow Wow

But see that type of old school policing Doesn't really exist What do you mean? Like now like I feel like how many cops are letting you, you know, bring yourself to your wife and kids to say goodbye and stuff, like how we see it in the movies and like what you just described. I don't know.

I feel like that humanization and humanity isn't there as much. It was no big deal. But you didn't have to do that, but you did that because you were a good guy. Right. It goes a long way. And I'm sure he remembered that moment for a while. Yeah. Yeah.

I never heard nothing about that after that. I think he played out to like 10 years or something. And that's why I think it's important to have these conversations. So like that ex-inmates and stuff have a different perspective of law enforcement. You're telling me off-camera, which is a good point to touch on that, we're not so different. Like you hear both the law enforcement stories on this channel and the criminal ones, and it's relatable both sides. Right. You can relate to – I get it, man, from people from crooks.

and it's, it's, uh, you just be a human being, you know. I mean, crooks can be human beings. Bad crooks need you stay in prison, but, you know, but, uh, just because you're making mistakes in life and haven't figured out yet doesn't mean you're a piece of shit. Just doesn't. There's always an opportunity to find redemption. It's funny because I, I think I hang around or have like three friends that were cops. out of all those years

because I just don't care for I mean they're okay but some of them you know I'm a cop okay you know and I'm not trying to be like I'm all high mighty I see people on your show that's not it's not me it's just is what it is

yeah well Darren I appreciate you coming on and I appreciate you bringing us these are your buddy's energy drinks you design the logo though or yeah the logo's from my gym okay this is the gym you own I own 10% of this company. Okay. It's the mastermind of this guy, David Poole and Mark Fabiani,

who used to work with me as a cop in Richmond. So he designed that and started trying to get it going, taking off. That's awesome. But, yeah, I mean, real quick to sum up some of the stuff like the human thing part of this. Yeah, of course. Frank, I have so many stories I go on for days. but Frank, who used to clean my showers, right, paroled. Well, when I started working in Richmond as a cop, they assigned me to a parole agent to help him.

So he has a warrant for Frank, Frank coffee. And I go, Frank coffee, I know that guy. That's my shower guy. Right. So we go to his house and, of course, his mom lets us in. And we can't find him. We open the closet door. There's a pile of clothes.

We moved the pile and there's Frank. And the first words that had Frank's mouth was, Bonahan? Like, Frank, what are you doing? And, of course, he had a gun next to him. So he took the gun. And then every day after that, every time he got arrested, we had this thing where, like, if he ran, he was holding a gun. He was just a bad dude, you know, but cool. I don't know how to explain it.

And his deal is if I'm running, I'm dirty. You know, so if he ran, we would chase him. If he didn't run, we just sit and bullshit with him and leave. Well, every time he got arrested, I'd go to the jail and talk to him. Frank, when are you going to stop this, man? You're getting old. And then I got promoted to the sergeant, and I ran the gang's, the gang firearm and parole unit, because we have parole agents assigned to us.

And I ran that. I come to my office when I get a phone call, a message. Mon Hands, Frank Coffey. Call me at this number. He goes, I want you and Thoreau. Thorell was his parole agent. I want you guys to come to my wedding. I'm getting married.

I got a job driving a truck out of Reno. And I couldn't go because I already had something else going. And then I hadn't heard from Frank after that. Got invited to his wedding. He said, you guys would always tell me, when are you going to stop? When are you going to stop? And then here in September, I got his phone number and called him. And he's been clean and sober and out of prison for 18 years.

Wow. His kids, he has two kids that never even knew he was in prison. I mean, they know, but they don't know, you know. Yeah. Know it. And he's been married and divorced, but he's doing good. What does he do for work? He drives a truck at Reno, at Reno.

Tell him to come on the show. Yeah, I'll tell him. Tell him. I'll give him a call and tell him. I'm another friend that Tom. Tom's hilarious. You love Tom. He loves telling people that me and him were in prison together.

No, Tom. You were in prison. I was a prison guard. Big difference. Big difference. Yeah, yeah, but stories don't sound as cool. It doesn't sound as good. Great guy.

Me and him are really good friends. That's awesome. And then you go all the way to my gym where the gym's at. and I let people who just got out of prison or narcotics as I let them hold their narcotic anonymous classes in one of my offices. They can come train up my gym for free to get back on their feet. If you get a job, start paying me. Don't rip me off. And some of my best customers, best members of that gym are them guys.

They take care of it. They lock it up for me. They unlock it for me. They walk around with Nortainos across their neck, you know, and somebody doesn't pay, they'll check them. And it just, it comes back. You give, it'll come back. Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Darren again for coming on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation. I love the law enforcement correctional officer stories. It's a good switcheroo from the usual content. Well, it's just crazy starting as a correctional officer and I retired as a lieutenant that ran. I ran all our plain-closed division, so I very rarely wear a uniform in there. And so it was a big contrast from where I started to where I retired, which provides me a whole bunch of stories.

I never used to tell stories. I didn't like cops who told stories. And now here you are telling stories. Now I'm the old guy telling stories. You remind me a smitty. I don't know if you listen to his episode, the Philly Correctional Officer that became a cop. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

He's a good guy, Jack Buff, one of those OG guards from back of the... He was the one that said the same thing I said, that everybody should start in a jail or a prison before they become a street. And he said the convicts and inmates thing. Oh, dude, I don't remember that part. It's just not what it used to be. It's not, you know? No, it's way different. I love how he says convicts, too.

He's a good dude. If you ever in the East Coast, we got to link you with him. That would be awesome. Do you ever come out that way? No, not very. I don't like flying. I don't think he likes flying either. It's all driving.

He said the same thing. Right. Why don't you like flying? I don't know. I got friends that are pilots, too, and they think I'm nuts. You can't get killed in a car crash before you aren't playing.