The Bechdel Cast - Den of Thieves and A Conversation on Copaganda and the LASD with Cerise Castle

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

Content warning: this episode contains descriptions of police brutality.This week, Jamie and Caitlin speak with journalist Cerise Castle about her groundbreaking new series “A Tradition of Violence: The History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department” for Knock LA. We can’t recommend it enough -- Cerise also brings us "Den of Thieves," a movie that glorifies one of the LASD gangs she reports on. Read the series here, and follow Cerise on Twitter @cerisecastle!Read “A Tradition of Violence” series here: https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/ And contribute to the Knock LA Patreon here to support local journalism in LA (Jamie writes for them too, full disclosure): https://www.patreon.com/KNOCK_LA  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology, swaps of different meds, but by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care.

Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. had done before, tried to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHe true crime plus only on apple podcasts on the bechdel cast the questions asked if movies have women in them are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

My name is Caitlin Durante. And this is our podcast in which it's really long and it really seems like it's heading somewhere and then at the last second we tell you we're british den of thieves heads will know i'm like i don't are there den of thieves heads out there i have to you know there's there's a lot of dads out there the but this is this is our uh podcast about movies it is we take an intersectional feminist approach to analyzing movies using the bechdel test as a jumping off point which of course is a media metric created by queer cartoonist allisonchdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. Our version of this test is as follows. Two people of a marginalized gender have to have names, and they have to speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines. There is, there is an, I think we just added a caveat though,

because if it is O'Shea Jackson suddenly having a British accent, it does automatically pass the Bechdel test. Correct. There are, of course, you know, it's a complicated ongoing conversation about. It's always evolving. It's, yeah, it's always evolving.

It's always growing. There's a lot of caveats that we keep including. And that is most recent work uh before we kind of get into today's movie which is den of thieves um which is the longest movie in the entire world even though it's not the longest movie i've ever seen it felt so long and it is in like i don't i'm like it is i feel like it's a cop again ganda trend for the whole movie to appear like sepia tone for reasons i don't know um yeah certain subgenres of copaganda do that yeah it's a thing uh but but first we we really wanted to um spotlight our guests work she's really amazing so let's let's get her in here. Yes, let's do it.

She is a freelance reporter. She is covering, has covered, currently being released a story in Knock LA entitled A Tradition of Violence, The History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. It's Cerise Castle. Welcome. Hi. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. It's Cerise Castle. Welcome.

Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. Thanks for being here. Yeah, we're super excited to talk to you about your work. And it's going to be 13 parts. Is that correct? Yeah. So that was our original plan. This week, a bunch of information was released about the Banditos gang. On Monday, there were some additional names attached to a lawsuit that was brought by a deputy against the Banditos gang at the East Los Angeles station. So that's sort of adding to my plate. So that series might get

a little bit longer, just depending on, you know, what happens. But as of now, yes, 13 parts. That's incredible. I mean, as of as of this recording, five parts are out. And it's I mean, it's so well reported. Thank you so much for for it. I know how much, you know, labor had to have gone into it. And I want to make sure that our listeners sort of have a baseline of knowledge of what the series is about. So could you tell us a little bit about how, you know, how you went about reporting this and kind of what the arc of what you're talking about in this series is. Yeah, so this started when I received a list of litigation that the County of Los Angeles keeps track of, of cases that were brought where deputies were alleged to be involved in deputy gangs. And from that case, it's about 60 different cases totaling about $55 million in settlements. I just started looking into the different deputies that were involved in those cases, and it turned out that they had been involved in other shootings and other beatings and all other kinds of crime.

And from there, I started putting things together and was able to sort of figure out the history of deputy gangs in Los Angeles County. They've been in existence since at least the early 1970s. And over that time, they have cost taxpayers at least $100 million in settlement money from people that they have killed or beaten or otherwise physically harmed. The deputy gangs have a lot of influence. They generally are, their members are in positions of power at different stations throughout the department. So they can be in charge of things like scheduling, who gets promoted, who goes out to what call, when, who gets backup, who doesn't. They essentially run the department. We know of about 18 different gangs that are present throughout the department. There's probably more that we don't know about, but we have been able to come up with solid reporting on 18 different gangs, and we are

releasing what we found in this series that will be running through the end of the month. It's so incredibly well reported and the way that you're kind of laying it out historically of how far things go back and it quickly becomes a very depressing, what is it, like the cork board with 500 strings attached. Because there is so much overlap in the and and you continue to see people who have murdered people being promoted and and um the your piece from today that i thought was fascinating and very

bleak was that internally any whistleblower who even attempted to um to speak out against something like that internally would be it seems like consistently punished and never um promoted all right sorry go ahead yeah oh yeah i was just gonna say that's the case for most of the whistleblowers i I mean, there were some cases that, you know, I know about that. Unfortunately, I wasn't even able to report on because they're under protective seal. That's an interesting element for a lot of these cases, you know, because a lot so many of them are settled nine times out of 10, they settle a lot of this information remains secret when it doesn't go to trial, that stuff remains sealed. Whereas when it does go to trial, it becomes public record. So a lot of these whistleblowers,

when they settled, the department had them sign agreements that they cannot speak about the terms of their settlement, their case, um, you know, what their agreement was, et cetera. So there's a lot more dirt there that unfortunately it's, it's very difficult to find out about. That's like, ugh. And the fact that you have been able to report so much based on what is available, which sounds like a fraction of what actually has happened, speaks a lot. I'm curious about the process of reporting this story, and I feel like it will be interesting to our listeners as well. I mean, I think you're sort of just referencing it, but what were the sort of roadblocks you were get over thanks to the help of Knock LA is just the cost of this stuff. I mean, all this stuff is public record, but you still have to pay for it. And that quickly adds up. Just reporting this piece costs about $3,000. Yeah, and there's, there's a lot more that I want to continue to do. So it will cost

more money. But I think, you know, that's one thing that people don't really think about is, you know, just like the access to this stuff. It's, it's very hard to get, like, for me, a journalist, like, not to just like, think how hard it might be to a family that's trying to, you know, navigate the system and, you know, get some kind of justice for their loved one. Another roadblock that I ran up against is just, you know, these files have a habit of strangely disappearing. Even though these records are supposed to be kept, several of them had been destroyed when I went down to pick them up. And I never really got a full explanation of that. The clerk said it had been a mistake or some unusual occurrence,

I believe was the term that he used. But there were several files that had been destroyed, or they just couldn't locate that they were supposed to be in the courthouse. And when I went down there, the clerk just couldn't find them. Um, there have also, I've also had, um, just like crazy sort of scenarios happen when I've tried to pick things up. Like, uh, I was trying to pick up something that was on microfilm and the the person working told me that the water main in the basement of the courthouse had broken and destroyed all the microfilm and I would have to write a letter to the county um explaining why I needed it and then the county would decide whether or not to grant my request um and that's something that I'm still dealing with. But yeah, it can be it can be really crazy trying to just like deal with, you know, getting your

hands on public records. There's always some like random obstacle that will pop up in your way. And it's not always clear why that's happening. Yeah, it's always, I mean, it is always so, it doesn't feel like it should be legal to charge such high rates to access what are, I mean, then it's almost like, well, I hesitate to even call it public records if they're, if they're not available to anybody and introducing that cost barrier is such a huge thing. And it sounds like, you know, based on what you're just describing, that it's a full-time job, like getting your hands on these records. And it's, of course, especially with families

and friends of people who have been victimized by the police, like not everyone has that time. You know, it's like everyone has to live their lives. And that's um so frustrating i'm i'm glad that you were able to you know kind of get as much as you did but that sounds incredibly frustrating and complicated um oh yeah oh yeah you have to like make appointments to go down there um everything is time limited because of COVID protocols, which adds a whole other layer. Sometimes if your record is past a certain year, they just won't give it to you.

And that's something that I'm dealing with right now. There are some records that I wanted that they're past a certain cutoff date. And because that they're in a room that is reserved for old records um i've been told that they're just not going into that room because of coronavirus and there is no end date to covid so they're telling me that there's theoretically no date that they'll be going into that room which is illegal um but you know like i said you get all kinds of crazy things when you're when you're trying to navigate that yeah especially it's like i don't even understand that argument of like oh coronavirus is lurking in that room no one goes into like it doesn't make yeah it sounds like an excuse it sounds like a lot of these, public records are like public with a lot

of caveats. Yes. Yeah. To get into a little more, I really appreciated how at the beginning of, and we're going to link all the pieces for, if you're listening, it will be linked in the description of this episode. But you open each section by listing what the legal definition of a gang is. And then each installment sort of, you know, unpacks another element or incident that the LASD gangs have committed. So I wanted to just read that definition because I know that particularly it seems like older people sometimes have difficulty wrapping their head around gangs within the police and they're like, well, how, how, how could that be? And you lay it out at the beginning of every single piece. So it's, oh my gosh, it's under section 186.22 of the California Penal Code. A criminal gang is described as any organization or group of three or more people that one has a common name or identifying sign or symbol, two has as one of

its primary activities, the commission of one of a long list of California criminal offenses. And three, whose members have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity, either alone or together. And so of course, the sheriff's gangs you're reporting on very much fit that description. So I wanted to ask, just for our listeners who aren't really aware, what are the kind of through lines of activities that happen within these gangs? And yeah, just kind of common patterns that you identified throughout the reporting process? Yeah, the one, you know, commission of crime that we've seen in, you know, almost every gang that we've covered is, of course, murder. You know, we've also seen extortion of other deputies in the station.

They'll hold these what they call fund raisers where it's unclear where the money is exactly going and they'll pressure their colleagues into giving them money. Paul Tanaka actually had this special cigar smoking club at the sheriff's headquarters and you could get in if you gave him $500. That's a big one. They regularly beat people up. I've heard accounts of rape um so i mean like it's really anything it's in particular in the in i think it's the third piece uh linwood's worst nightmare that details the crimes of the the vikings gang is you know have heavy content warning, but was just so completely eye-opening for me. Those were crimes that I had never heard about before, and it seems like they were absolutely rampaging and targeting black and brown people in Linwood

nonstop for weeks and months. Yeah, yeah. The Linwood stuff, I mean, that that went on for years. And one thing that really makes me really upset is just hearing about hearing from some of the deputies that participated in this stuff. You know, one guy that I wrote about in in that piece was Cliff Yates, who went on to be involved in the beating death of a man at Men's Central Jail about 12 years ago, almost to the day that man's name was John Horton. And Cliff Yates, you know, he went on to have, he was promoted within the department. He retired and receives a six-figure pension. He lives in Florida.

And as far as I know, he was never really disciplined for any of the incidents that I know that he was involved in. He's written a book where he details his career as a law enforcement officer over the past 30 years. He describes police work as hunting for humans. And he's just like, I'm very frightened, really, frightened really by how someone can view um their work in a in a way like that like how they can look at the terror that they inflicted on a community in such a in such a distorted light it really frightens me absolutely yeah it's i it and the i don't know, just the normalization of that attitude. It's like, I don't know, something that you know, but then just hearing it come out of someone's mouth and to know that they're being, they're absurdly wealthy, you know, and they're like still living on the taxpayer's dime after not being held to account for murder and and now they're you know living in a mansion in florida or whatever it is that um that they're doing uh yeah i i um that piece in particular really was i mean mean, it's disturbing, like, the way that, in the way that it's laid out.

Yeah, I guess another question that I had, were there any, I guess, in the process of reporting this, were there any moments where you truly, like, were there, is there, like, one moment that kind of sticks out one interview just um yeah because I know it was such a long process um god I would say probably there that really stick with me are when I contact a family to tell them that the person that killed their loved one killed somebody else. And that really sucks. And that's probably like what sticks with me the most. Just being that like bearer of bad news and just like having to like tell them that, you know, like your case didn't really make a difference um nothing changed this person was promoted this person is still on the streets like doing the same shit that he did to your family um and that just like really brings the the story home to me i mean that's like you know why i did it i mean this stuff has been going on for years I've been

hearing about gangs in the sheriff's department since I was a kid um so you know I hope that by talking about it and bringing more attention to this we can hopefully see some changes in the structure absolutely I mean I I sincerely hope that this series ends up having a demonstrable effect because there's there's just just so so much it's overwhelming um yeah i i'm and and that sounds incredibly emotionally taxing for for everyone for, for, for you and for the families and, oh, it's just absolutely brutal, but I'm, I'm glad that, um, it's, you know, there's being light shed on it. Um, and so I guess, uh, to, to kind of close out, unless there's stuff we haven't touched on that you would like to, um, what do you, you know, by the time this series has concluded, what do you hope people take away from it? Or what effect do you hope that the series

has? Well, I mean, I'd love everyone in Los Angeles County to have read the series. I don't know how realistic that is. but that would be my dream. I would love everyone in LA County just to be aware of what's happening in the department, because I really think this has been able to be an open secret for the past 50 years, and I think we really need people actively engaged and talking about it, that would be my primary goal. I'd love to see the board of supervisors call me in to talk about my reporting. And I'd love to help them with an investigation. I'd love to assess anyone with an investigation. I'm happy to turn over what I know. That's what I'd love to see. I think at the very

minimum, there needs to be an audit of the department at the minimum. And there are people that have been in this space for a lot longer than I have that have come up with some great solutions that, you know, if people are so inclined to engage with that, like I'd really recommend checking them out, like the Check the Sheriff Coalition sheriff coalition for example um yeah i'd love to see more people tapped in with them um that's what i'd love to see yeah absolutely and i would recommend i mean even if you live outside of la county it's the the lessons and that you and and what you can take away from having read this series is applicable to anyone um you know living in a place with a sheriff's department. Like the LASD is egregiously bad, but it's not like these crimes are beholden to LA.

It's widely applicable reporting that everyone should definitely check out. And I do think it's great that Knock LA was able to help fund and publish it as well, because it seems like the kind of report that, you know, could only be done at an independent news source, where it seems like there's always so many blockages when you're working with a huge mainstream source, which I know you have. I just think that they don't want to do it, to be perfectly honest with you. Speak to that. I'm so curious what your thoughts on that are,

because I know you've worked on kind of both sides of that line. Yeah, I mean, just to be candid, I mean, this information has been out there for the past 50 years, major institutions have had the funding to go after this information, they've had the access to the information. The reason that they didn't do it and from where I'm standing is it just wasn't an interest. This affects black and brown people. This affects low income people. And those aren't communities that newspapers have seen or not just newspapers, but that major media outlets have not viewed as a priority, um, really ever. So that's why it didn't get done it's the same reason that the grim sleeper um a serial killer in south los angeles was able to terrorize the community

for almost 40 years and kill with impunity that never really got any news coverage it's the same reason why deputy gangs in those same neighborhoods don't get any news coverage. Absolutely. Yeah, I thank you. Thank you for your insight on that, too, because it's it's also it's shocking just reading through your reporting how, you know, like it would have taken reporting and funding. But like you say, it has it's not like there's ever been any shortage of available funds to do that.'s the willingness and um prioritizing uh black and brown people in reporting which just doesn't seem to ever happen in mainstream reporting um yeah i is there is there anything else you want to hit on before we kind of start transitioning into Den of Thieves stuff? Yeah, I would just say, you know, please check out the series.

And, you know, we talked about how expensive this is. If you're so inclined, like, please send a dollar or two to the NOC Patreon. I'd love to continue doing this research and, you know, any help I can get is much appreciated. Absolutely. And I guess I should full disclosure and say that I write there as well. I was like, I don't know what the right point in the episode to put it is, but it's now. Wow. Yeah. So I guess just, sorry, go ahead. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you again for doing this reporting and putting in all of this time and effort to shed light on this thing that I'll admit I really didn't know the extent to which there were like things you could,

like you can classify as gangs operating in the sheriff's department. So I was, I was just like, Oh, well, I mean, it makes sense, but I just didn't know anything about it. So yeah. Thank you again for, for doing this reporting and shedding light on this. Yeah, it's my pleasure. So to kind of transition into what, into like getting us to Den of Thieves stuff, because there's so much to talk about there.

We really want to talk with you about how cops are presented to us in media. It's something we've talked about on the show before, but I don't think extremely in depth. And yeah, I guess I'm just kind of curious of your opinion on how, particularly movies for our purposes, but how media has very deliberately shaped what our view of cops and in this case specifically the sheriff's department has been over the years. Yeah I've been watching a lot of cop media while reporting this piece

I've just really been living with it my favorite god hell i i i don't know i just i don't know i've really like solidly in like corrupt cop world my favorite show right now is the shield which is um a whole other thing um but yeah i one thing that really fascinates me about how cops are presented in all of these cases is that they're um they're always sort of given this um personality of like the the hard charging like badass rule breaker um they're never like we never hear a story about a quote-unquote like good cop who like does everything by the book um you know has like a good relationship with their community it's always these like assholes that are shooting everybody and like that's accepted as really cool in the world that

they live in it's so and it's like even there's a moment in den of thieves that i will will get to where it's like yeah if if a cop is like like doing something by the book like everyone just calls him a dork and they like call him a loser and make fun of his shoes and then continue to uh break the law it's yeah wild yeah the the framing of a lot of like just movies and media about cops is yeah you're totally right it's like these you know i don't play by the rules kind of cowboy shit that like, but they're still framed as like the, the heroes who do this competent police work and who save the day and who catch the quote bad guys.

And, you know, just like all the framing of this, um, which it is, it is like straight up propaganda. This, you know, just like all the framing of this, um, which it is, it is like straight up propaganda, this, you know, this, and I didn't even, I, again, I'll admit that like, I didn't, I fell for it for so long and, um, it's just like, oh God. And then, and Den of Thieves, I mean, we'll get into it, but it's, it's doing a lot of the same stuff that we've seen before. Except it's five hours long.

Because it is so long. And, like, so absurdly. And then he's British at the end. And then I feel like we all really learned something. Well, should we take a quick break and then come back and get into the movie? All right. We'll be back in a moment. And we're back.

We're back. So, yeah, Den of Thieves is, I mean, ripe for discussion of how cops and how specifically the LASD is portrayed in media. Cerise, you probably, you definitely know way more about this than we do. Is this, does the LASD, are they like, I know the LAPD comes up in movies and media constantly but does the LASD come up very much in in media that you know of yeah I've actually started compiling a list of um LA law enforcement and media as far as LASD to my knowledge um they have a documentary about them called LA County 187 that was produced for TV I believe in the late 80s early 90s done of thieves of course and there's a recent movie out with Jared Leto and Denzel Washington called The Little Things which is and Rami Malek and that's about the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as well is there anything you've seen that you feel like, I haven't seen the little things yet.

I forgot that it came out, honestly. Are there any portrayals of the LASD that you think have been appropriately critical that has come out? Or is it mostly kind of like badass cop stuff um i've never seen anything critical of law enforcement in a movie or television show i mean i like to say that this shield is satire um but my girlfriend just sort of rolls her eyes at me and walks away when i bring that conversation to the table. It's a galaxy brain take. Yeah, I was thinking about, I was going through just kind of like the list of episodes we've done that I was like, oh, there, yeah, the protagonist of this movie is like a knight.

Like even movies like fucking Fargo. You're like, oh, no, I've been duped into thinking that like well cop is woman now so it's all okay it's all good it's like oh yeah what a fool the media uh around a sheriff's department not the los angeles one um but, but that I've been most exposed to has been Reno 911, which is a show that I do love and think is very funny, but it's like one of the things that duped me where I'm like, Oh, this show about these sheriffs,

they're all such lovable goofs. Tee hee. And that's probably not how they actually are in real life. Yeah. There's it's,'s it's it is over like it's genuinely overwhelming of how much copaganda there is and how many genres it spans because like you were saying caitlin like there's cop comedies and there's like you know there's like, you know, there's kind of the Den of Thieves genre of like sepia toned, intense glorification of being a horrible cop. And then there's like the procedurals. There's just there's it's so pervasive that it's I don't know. Yeah, I got I became overwhelmed by it.

And then there's literally the show Cops, which is like every, my uncles love it so much. And it's so harmful and scary. But yeah, so today we're kind of zoning in on, I guess this is like more of what I think of automatically when i think of copaganda is like the den of thieves vibe of the badass cop who he can't leave his work at work and there there were like moments in this movie where i was i guess i was like kind of like you watching the shield series where like are they are they trying to say something critical but then in the next scene you're like oh just kidding just kidding just kidding he's amazing he just drinks a little bit like it's just so it's a lot let's talk about it yeah um well i guess is that um

should i just do the recap? Then we'll discuss. Yeah, feel free to jump in during the recap. I can't tell if this movie has a really convoluted plot or if it's like three sentences long. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen.

Dragged. I'm NK, um, dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in.

Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you, and it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.

And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The plot doesn't make any sense there are several like key plot holes like the first being that o'shea jackson like couldn't have joined the marine corps with a juvenile criminal record like right i didn't even think of that yeah that's also there's so many like convenient things that happen yeah like the ordering of the food and getting delivered and the exact right time like i don't know yeah so here's the story that doesn't make auteur piece by Mr. Christian Guttegast. And we're like, who? Yeah.

So the movie opens with like text on the screen with statistics that say that in Los Angeles, which is the bank robbery capital of the world. Banks are robbed 2,400 times a year. We see then an armored car being robbed. The cops show up. There's a big shootout between the gang of robbers or the den of thieves. And, yeah, them and the police and the den of thieves managed to escape with the armored car and the their leader is ray merriman um 50 cent is also there playing a character whose name i never figured out um my favorite part about the 50 cent character is that at one point because he like works out in his garage and you see he has a stadium arcadium red hot chili peppers poster i was like wait a

second that's in my notes i was like whose poster whose poster is that? The Stadium Arcadia poster blew my mind. I was like, is 50 Cent my brother? Like, what is going on? Loved that little character detail. He is a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan. His name, hang on. Let me look at IMDb. His name is, oh, Ensign Laveau.

Oh, Laveau. Okay. Oh, Laveau. Okay, yeah. Laveau. I did know that. Yeah. And then Donnie is also there. That's O'Shea Jackson Jr. There's also this guy named Bosco.

So that's the Den of Thieves. Then we cut to Big Nick, a.k.a. Gerard Butler. Phantom of the Opera himself. Wait, that is who? Oh my gosh, that completely slipped my mind. Yeah, it's the unfortunate truth that he played the Phantom of the Opera really badly. Holy shit.

I don't know who I thought it was, but I did not remember it being Gerard Butler. Wow. Gerard Butler. Wow. Sorry to unsettle you with that. I'm broken. I'm so broken right now. Gerard Butler and I, I was an extra on a movie that he was the star of. If anyone remembers, I think it was called The Bounty Hunter. Jennifer Aniston's also in it um i was an extra

in that movie you're welcome everybody congratulations post this screenshot um gerard butler and i did uh make eye contact on that set for a brief moment and um that is my that's my story about gerard butler anyway he's his career is very all over the place there's just like a lot going because wasn't he in that movie PS I love you is that was that him I remember yeah that Irish guy yes oh he was like dead husband and damn i that movie was really forced down my throat in like middle school or whenever it came out he's also in there's a rom-com it's called like the ugly truth or something with with uh katherine heigl i want to say isn't it yeah he's it's just he's got range is what we're saying wild um yeah he's he's it's but it's like he really he's bad he's been bad in every

genre it's really interesting he's a great example of failing upwards over yeah yeah he's a spotter he's he's really blown it in so many different genres i almost respect it it's well yeah okay so anyway big nick is the head of major crimes uh of the los angeles sheriff's department i think i don't know what anyone's like title is but he's in charge of this investigation he goes to the crime scene uh we learned that the armored truck that the Den of Thieves stole was empty. And so they're like, well, why would they steal an empty truck? What's going on? And how did they know about the drop-offs and the roots and all this stuff?

And then they know of Merriman. What is his name? Merriman. Merriman. In his band? Merriman if what is his name mary mary mary man merriman and his band merriman do either of you remember he was like in a bunch of disney channel original movies ryan merriman he played the little leprechaun in luck of the irish that's who i was thinking of the entire

movie wait that actor is in a bunch of d-coms he said like old old ones like he was in luck of the irish he i think he was decapitated in final destination three amongst other those are his top two credits i could think of yeah of course wow okay so they know about merriman and they think that he might behind it he might be like behind this robbery where did they get his name from like we don't know literally just were like what if it's merriman like what i did not even think i was like i guess i just didn't question it but they did like they just they just knew what could that pays a visit to donnie who the cops um know to be an associate of merriman not really sure how they know that either but anyway uh nick and his deputies interrogate donnie and donnie breaks and

tells them that he is in fact they kidnap him they kidnap him yeah they kidnap him they taser him they kidnap him take him to a hotel room where they're partying with some sex workers sex workers very accurate unceremoniously i was like i don't even think they got featured extra like they unceremoniously are they're dismissed from the scene without ever having said a word they're just and they were just guided out and you're like oh okay and they are the first women who even appear on the screen in the entire movie and it takes about 20 minutes for them to show up so until then it's just a lot of toxic men and then it's still a lot of toxic men after that but sometimes you see a woman sprinkled throughout a scene um okay so yeah donna uh nick abducts uh

and interrogates donnie and Donnie breaks and tells him that he is a driver for Merriman and he tells him about a previous job they pulled together and then Nick lets Donnie go and he's like, we'll be in touch. Another thing I want to bring up is that in that scene, he shows Donnie his regulator tattoo. Yes, okay, let's,

because I felt like those early scenes were the most specific to the lasd uh break it down for us yeah so i mean that whole interrogation thing like i've read through um like reviews that the county puts out of incidents that officers get in trouble for and that's like not too far off from some real instances that i've read about with la county sheriff's deputies um the tattoo i mean that's a real deputy gang the regulators is a deputy gang that operated out of the century station um and yeah i mean all of that is very true looking, very not true far from reality.

That's how these deputy gangs get down. It's so, and it's like the way it's presented is so bizarre, too, because it, especially after reading your reporting, you're like, oh, this is something that could conceivably have happened. But we're not supposed to think it's bad like it's the way that it's framed to the the viewer is so manipulative and bizarre even though it seems like it's showing some pretty true-to-life um interaction potential interactions yeah yeah i almost like missed it the first time I watched the movie. He was just like, see my tattoo? We're what you might call part of a gang. And then, yeah, that's like the only reference. We're a clique, which is what, which is the term that, you know, people in law enforcement currently use when they're talking about these gangs. Like, they're very happy to admit most of the time under oath

that they're a part of a clique, a deputy clique. So, yeah, I mean, that was very true to life. Two things that he said that I wrote down was, we just shoot you, it's less paperwork. Which, I mean, yeah, I mean, attorneys have told me as much that it's easier for these deputies to kill people rather than have them live when they live. I've had an attorney say to me, that's the deputy's worst nightmare because they can challenge the police's narrative of them being in fear for the life. And it just makes things a lot harder.

So, yeah, that attitude is very true to life. He also tells Donnie, you're not the bad guys we are which is again it's like it's so uh i it like made my head hurt i'm like because if you see that on paper you're like oh yeah that seems uh to be pretty accurate uh but the way that the the movie frames it and the where that like exists in context with the rest of the story makes it seem like this like bizarre joke i don't it's right i kept it strange yeah i kept expecting, like, the arc of the rest of the story to go very, very differently. That, like, you'd see more examples of them being the bad guys in a way that, like, the movie is actually framing them as being the bad guys. But the movie frames them as, like, nope, they're good at police. And they're the people you're supposed to be

rooting for i think i don't know who you're supposed to be rooting for in this movie actually because i found no one to be redeemable no no one was redeemable but i mean i definitely wasn't rooting for the regulators um i mean i think as far as like when we're looking at like who did the most harm like i think the den of thieves like hurt a lot less people. Right. I think Donnie's worst crime was, you know, giving those two poor women some expired Chinese food. Right. It does seem like they were mostly.

I mean, it was like they were the crimes were victimless. They were taking money. Oh, maybe that's wait. I just had a moment. I think I know why he's called Merry Men. Is it like isn't that a Robin Hood thing? Yes. And taking from the rich and giving to the.

Oh, my seventh grade English teacher is so thrilled right now. Yeah. so thrilled right now um yeah it's like that they were not hurting anybody in their uh or at least originally it seems like i mean and the regulators are throughout the plot um like hurting people at at least if they you know like your introduction like your introduction to o'shea jackson in any detail is him being abducted and physically harmed and all sorts of offensive like they say racist stuff to him they say homophobic stuff to him it's just they mock his body in a really weird way yeah it's so like they're but then the marketing for this movie so I think that that was I would be really curious to know the editing process for a script like this.

Or like if the original draft of this script could have potentially been more ambiguous, I guess, than what you kind of end up with. But the marketing definitely wants you to think good guys versus bad guys. Like even down to the way that the poster is designed it's the the bad guys are like in like they're upside down and the good guys aka as the movie would have you believe it the regulators are like in the kind of dominant position and i was even watching i was curious what the press tour for this movie was like um so i watched and it was mostly just like 50 cent and gerard butler being friends in a way that was like i don't need to watch this but i watched them but but they would also present the story uh in that way like when

introducing the movie it's like oh you know it's like a good guy bad guy it's kind of like heat a movie i've never seen but i know is about cops uh another long boring like fuck that movie but but i just found it like yeah like that this at least the the marketing narrative for this movie even though there are lines like we are the bad guys is that the regulators are in fact the good guys or that's the pitch it's very it's so it made my head hurt and part of what like and we'll talk about this too but the well what's what happens next in the story is that um nick's his wife oh my god leaves him uh because he's been cheating on her but i feel like the women are there to like humanize big nick a bit and like make us feel empathy or try to make the audience feel empathetic toward him um so that's that's happening he's being divorced um and then meanwhile merriman donnie and the rest

of the den of thieves uh start make start making plans to rob the los angeles branch of the federal reserve which is the only bank in la that's never been successfully robbed because it's under such tight security. And their plan is that an average of $30 million in cash gets destroyed every day, which I was curious if that's true. Because if it is, what a horrifying fact. It's like, if it is, we should rob that. We should rob the federal reserve

that's a great idea just there's literally so many ways and maybe want to rob the federal reserve so they're planning to rob this 30 million dollars in cash uh on this particular day and it gets destroyed because it's considered like old and unfit um which means that it's untraceable and no one's going to be looking for it so they're going to try to steal it meanwhile nick and his crew of deputies start tailing uh merriman's den of thieves they're fucking with them uh they're letting them know we're on to you and then donnie is kind of playing both sides you know he's he's telling uh the cops stuff about this heist he's telling merriman that he's been talking to the cops you know he's kind of in the

middle this is where the part of the movie that i began to grow very confused like the there's the middle of this movie is really long and i couldn't i don't i didn't understand what was going on well enough to tell when someone was lying about what was going on and um ended up really becoming distressed i I did not know what was happening. Right. And then, okay, so then before the big heist, the Den of Thieves rob a small local bank, which Big Nick has been tipped off about, so he heads there.

But the robbers, the Den of Thieves, they don't do their usual thing. This time they make demands, they take and kill hostages, or so we are led to believe. But wait a minute, turns out that this was all to create a diversion to distract the cops and give the den of thieves time to pull off the real heist at the federal at the federal reserve which nick eventually figures out is what's happening and then we see the the heist in progress they use the armored truck that they stole to pose as and i don't know if they're like guys who work for the federal reserve or it's like some

entity that like drops the money off at the reserve from the banks so they pretend to be these guys they drop off the money that they stole from this small bank um at the federal reserve donnie is inside one of the containers of money and then we see him do a bunch of heist stuff those shots were fun when they when they got him in the little cube you're like oh this is nice there are like 20 minutes of this movie that i was like oh i'm this is because i love a heist movie i love to watch a heist and i was i was like okay this is this is fun i'm enjoying this they they're cutting the power. You know, there's all that kind of heisty stuff.

It's all very national treasure. It's exciting. Yeah. So then Donnie gets the money that was going to be destroyed. He prevents it from being shredded. He puts it in bags and then he throws it in, I guess, like a trash chute. And then all of the den of thieves manage to escape uh they hijack the dump truck and get the bags of money but oh no big nick and his deputies pick up donnie then they find the rest of the robbers. There's this huge shootout with all of the den of thieves being on a

freeway. Freeway. It's like so many cars around them. Yeah. How many civilian casualties were like, it seemed like there, the highway was full of people, but then all of a sudden there were only the four main cast members like it was it was so confusing

not sure um so they kill all the the deputy the sheriffs kill the den of thieves but wait a minute the money that they stole it's not there And then when Nick gets back to his car, Donnie has escaped because it turns out Donnie was the mastermind of the whole heist. He had been tricking everyone. He's the one who got the money. And then we cut to him in London with a British accent that I, I'm not sure how authentic or convincing it is.

And he's, you know, he's planning another heist. He goes, diamond exchange? Drinks on me, mate. You're like, okay, sure. So that's the story. Let's take another quick break, and then we'll come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel,

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This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. I guess to start, Cerise, we sort of talked a little bit about the interrogation scene at the beginning of the movie already when they kidnapped Donnie um were there other um elements uh regardless kind of I guess regardless to start of how they're being framed but were there other specifics about the LASD that jumped out to you in in the way um that this movie is kind of written and presented yeah um I was really just like sort of like taken by like how many references to the gangs that there were in this movie.

I mean, there's that scene where he shows the tattoo and he's beating Donnie. which is a facility that's home to another deputy gang called the Wayside Whities, which is like a KKK type gang that regularly terrorizes black inmates. So that was also're sort of running surveillance on this um smaller bank that the den of thieves is going to rob um he says that they let it go down because the den of thieves had to commit a crime um in order for them to do something as soon as they got out of the car with those assault rifles, a crime was being committed, which, I mean, it tracks as far as the LASD, just sort of like, you know, letting things happen and stepping in, you know, when they think it'll be to their advantage. There have been several

cases like that that i've covered um yeah that seemed very realistic to me wow it's i it so this movie is written and directed by christian gutagast who uh is from what i can tell he's soap opera nepotism and also Caitlin relevant to our interest the guy who plays John Jacob Astor in Titanic Christian Guttagast is his son so he's also Titanic nepotism whoa John Jacob Astor the richest man on the ship, the richest man on the ship? Famously the richest man on the ship. RIP. Just kidding. He probably was horrible. But Christian Guttegast is nepotism of that.

I would be really curious to know where his, because it does seem like you're saying, Cerise, he's referencing a lot of hyper specifics. And he grew up in LA. because it does seem like you're saying, Cerise, he's referencing a lot of hyper-specifics, and he grew up in L.A., so maybe there's some cultural osmosis going on there. And then I also read that there was a former special agent that consulted on this movie as well, so it sounds like it's very possible

that they had consulted someone who had been somehow affiliated with the LASD to make this movie as well so it sounds like it's very possible that they had consulted someone who had been somehow affiliated with the lasd to make this movie which sort of opens up something that i feel like we we've talked about in passing over the years which is that you know when you're writing about um or when they're i feel like often when there's movies that are about cops or especially about the military consultants are brought on who are very pro cop and pro military and it's you never see consultants being brought on to a movie like this that have the same knowledge base but would be perhaps critical of murder like I feel we we hear that all the time with um i forget what the what the job title is but there's like a high-ranking military person whose job is to uh work with hollywood and

say okay you can use our tanks and transformers if you get a b and c you know sneak it into the movie and it's such a traceable pattern that i would guess whatever consulting was done on this movie is kind of the same the same thing is going on here um yeah i wish i knew more about the consulting process with this movie there's it seems like people were really not interested in this movie because i couldn't find a lot about the production other than 50 Cent and Gerard Butler love going on talk shows together and chatting. That's all. But yeah, I think that the consulting process

on movies like this is really critical because it's bizarre that there's that level of specificity in a completely uncritical way well i would also argue that because i watched this movie for the first time before i had read any of the parts of your piece on these gangs in the sheriff's department in la and i don't know if I'm just dense, but like, I, again, I, I, I was aware of like, just the trope of, you know, cops in movies, you know, being these kind of hard ass, I don't play by the rules, I do my own thing. And that's how I catch the bad guys. Sort of just like mentalities, especially for the Big Nick character. But like the references to the gang he's in, like, I just kind of missed

that. You know, I know he's like pointing at a tattoo, but I don't know like what exactly that was in reference to. So even though there are these specific references, I think if you don't already have some kind of baseline of knowledge about these gangs in sheriff's departments which I'd imagine the general public doesn't know that much about which is why it's so important for everyone to read your writing Cerise but like I was just like oh and so I didn't even connect the dots really until after I had read the the parts that have been published so far of your writing so um i guess i was i ended up being just very surprised that i'm not surprised but i i was expecting um if there are going to be these references in the movie that it would that it would be more critical

about it but again the framing of these of these deputy characters in the movie is like, yeah, they're grizzled, they're rough around the edges, they drink, they smoke, they cheat on their wives, they get divorced, you know, all these things. But ultimately, at the end of the day, they're good cops, and they're doing good work. And we're,'re you know we're supposed to be rooting for them and even though the three of us watching this movie are not rooting for big nick and his deputies because of how we know uh like just the all of the horror and terror and everything that cops inflict on the communities they're supposed to be protecting. They are not redeemable to us.

But again, I think that the movie is like framing them as like, nope, these are the good guys. See, see how empathetic they are. Oh, don't you feel bad for him?

He's crying because he can't see his daughter. Like that kind of stuff. Yeah. The way that daughters are bandied about in this goddamn movie is so it's it is like the you you were referencing this earlier caitlin but yeah the the way that uh the women in this movie are used are generally to endear you to a male character especially the daughters with gerard oh my god gerard butler like my daughter my daughter my daughter i'm so sick of like these like just oh god i've my daughter

culture we gotta kill it it's so boring and manipulative in in the way that it's kind of weaponized because you could i mean you could take the my daughter of it all out of Gerard Butler's storyline, and the only result of it would be that you would like his character less, which this movie seems pretty invested in you remaining somehow, like, somewhat loyal to him. And then you kind of get a similar moment

with 50 Cent's character where, I don't know, in the way that the daughters are used to, it's just so corny and tropey too. Because for 50 Cent, he's like, this is my daughter's prom date. You better not be mean to my daughter or all of my friends will kill you. And it's like, God, it's so corny. It's a scene we've seen a bajillion times. It's scary and possessive. And then he and it's like god it's so corny it's a scene we've seen a bajillion times it's scary and possessive and then he closes the door and it's a stadium arcadian poster and i'm like and the daughter never comes back and like no you never see her again we don't even know how the prom went i was infested um i love how when gerard butler's

daughter has a line on screen her the first thing she says to her father is what are you doing same valid question especially after because his his his wife uh just said to him like you smell really bad and then he got extremely close to his very young daughter and i was like stinky gerard butler getting close to his kid to get i don't know i mean i guess the one act of agency that a woman has in the whole movie is gerard butler's wife being like nope we're getting out of here um which again was something that i thought i i don't know why i kept like i i just like there were a few moments where i'm like oh benefit of the doubt maybe this is going somewhere and then it never was but it's i thought it was interesting i guess interesting is as close as you'll get but um that they gave Gerard Butler like a disastrous

home life and they made it like the movie went really out of its way to show that he was just a plague to everyone in his personal life um and that he was pretty like unloved by his family which I feel like it is I mean that that's doesn't necessarily happen in all copaganda movies a lot of times you have like the like a cop that has a very well-structured home life and maybe he goes rogue a little bit maybe he like fucks around with other women but he still has this like nuclear family unit but that's not I mean it's very much not the case for him. I was wondering, because there is such a well-documented high rate of domestic abuse and coming from cops, usually to their wives, but just to their spouses in general. I was like, is that where this is going?

But then it was, it turns out it was going actually nowhere. Yeah, there's that very long scene where he like shows up to his wife's like little dinner party with her other friends. What was going on there? And he's like terrorizing everybody. And I'm just like, again, like, who are we supposed to be rooting for in this movie? Because everyone's so toxic and awful i think that was supposed to sort of like put her in a bad light right because she was there with her boyfriend and which i think was supposed to mean but oh like she's been unfaithful as well

everyone is right and like when you when you first meet her it's in the same scene that she's leaving him so again like i look at that i'm like yes you were clearly very justified in leaving this very shitty why did you marry this person is my question but the way that these scenes like this get framed in movies in like just sort of the way that storytelling manipulates audiences is it makes us like we're not meant to like that his wife character or side with her because of like she's doing something mean to the guy that we're supposed to be rooting for so yeah and then he just shows up at his daughter's like playground at school and why are no teachers being like uh who is this man don't talk to this weird man who's lingering at a playground like what it's so like yeah him lingering at a playground was i was like oh i need get me out of here get me out of here i don't want to be here anymore i hit it's i i i was so confused i was like what are we supposed

to in what world is this going to endear you to this man and then i was just like well you know um we're clearly not the target audience for this movie. I would honestly, I'm just like, I want to talk to whoever the target movie, like who is the target audience for this movie? And I would like to have a word with them because they have a twisted mind. Yeah, the way that, and that's mainly, I mean, that's kind of the only way that

in terms of talking about, like maybe this movie obviously doesn't pass the bechdel test like women are just there to make you feel a way about a good guy or a bad guy and i think well another the other female characters you have you have a number of sex workers who are presented nameless fac faceless, usually as set dressing. Yes. And either to be shamed or to be set dressing. And then you have, what's his name?

Liev Schreiber's brother, what's it? Merriman. Merriman's girlfriend or his wife. I'm not sure which. Wait, he's L leave schreiber's oh my gosh yeah there's a lot of nepotism going on in this i mean it's nepotism top to bottom except well actually i guess leah schreiber's brother and o'shea jackson jr is ice cube's son um right and christian gutagast is john jacob astor from titanic's son so whatever

nepotism fuels the world we know this um yes but yeah so so that merriman's partner i don't know i don't know like really um what their relationship is because the movie doesn't tell you uh but he weaponizes her as well and kind of sends her out on can someone explain to me what was going on there because i was confused uh i mean it didn't that's another thing that didn't really make any sense i feel like she seduced him and in that in that interaction she was able to she informed him where the robbery was going to be but like i don't really that part didn't really make sense to me like why would that come up like in a tryst like oh my boyfriend's robbing a bank like

hey are you a sheriff you might want to know about this right yeah what mary mary you learn that Merriman puts her up to it. And like he's she's he tells her to deliberately give him this information so that those deputies go to that place so that they are adequately distracted from the real heist. But right. Like, so it's this he's. Oh, God. but right like so it's this he's oh god he's like pimping out his girlfriend to like be better at crimes and i'm just like oh my god and then there's that scene where there's like a just like a dick measuring contest at the shooting range between merriman and gerard butler and they're just like i can shoot my gun better than you

who who is this but it seems like that is like cop culture in like just the in the embarrassing dick measuring hyper masculine cowboy culture is cowboy culture is, is so, I don't, it's so, I, I guess I, I'm, I'm, I'm curious about your,

your thoughts on that two series where it's like, it seems like these two things kind of feed into each other in this very insidious way where it's like all media surrounding cops reinforced this cowboy mentality. And I, I, I mean, there's countless examples of uh people who

decide they want to become cops based off of watching movies like this and then it sounds like based on your reporting that the culture that actually exists very much reflects that it just seems like a kind of a snake eating its own tail in terms of how the how the culture works there. Yeah, I think you summed it up perfectly. I mean, everything that was depicted in this movie, like that kind of stuff is celebrated in law enforcement. You know, like after there's a shooting, a lot of the times they're going out and having drinks and, you know, celebrating it. Yeah, I think you very much hit it on the head like people a lot of people unfortunately i think join law enforcement so they can participate in stuff like this yeah and like fulfill this you know whether

it seems like a like a dominant fantasy basically um right yeah and then yeah i mean again framing is everything the way these characters are framed in media is often like wow they're so cool they're such badasses you know they play by their own rules they're the heroes they're like you know quote unquote saving the day and it just perpetuates this cycle of propaganda yeah it's not good it's it's um i'll say it i don't like it um wow brave yeah thank you um and i also thought it was like a very deliberate choice to make the um to make the den of thieves the you know who the movie wants you to fill in are the bad guys to make them all veterans as well it's like i think a very tropey and deliberate choice they were very um wait it was it was a specific branch they were from uh marsauk marine special forces yes right

and so it's like you're all there's also this other narrative that's kind of going on there that implies that uh you know veterans are inclined to behave a type of way in a way that's just i don't know it's it's obviously extremely un-nuanced but it doesn't really i mean this movie interrogates nothing except like why does gerard butler look so bad but um and the other the other big question does 50 cent listen to stadium arcadium um but in terms of like really intentionally choosing i feel like it's really tropey to be like, oh, he's an ex-Marine. So, of course, he's like really tough and really violent without interrogating like, well, where does that trope come from? And can the government not be held to account as being extremely complicit in Marine violence and then providing veterans with no resources, you know uh or job prospects often once they're

out of the forces and just i don't know that kind of pinged me as well of like oh of course this movie is going to be poorly written enough just to be like um ex-marine sure sounds good Yeah. Are there, it was like, we definitely ran out of women. I'm pretty sure. Your thoughts on how media can handle the representation of law enforcement and that kind of thing more responsibly or in a way that is just more critical and shedding light on the, again, the like very often racially charged violence that they're inflicting on individuals and communities any any thoughts yeah i mean i think we just need to stop having movies like this right i mean it's yeah and if you i don't think police violence should be glorified in movies like i definitely think like there's perhaps a way to, you know, have films that discuss the terror that police inflict on communities, but it's done in such a way that it's, you know, amplifying the voices of the of that and the toll that it's taken on their lives i'm much more interested in seeing that rather than some asshole with a gun you know use the r word and kill a bunch of people and then go home and collect i think one of the few movies i've seen about that or like like from that perspective would be straight out of compton um the hate you

give and then maybe a handful of others but they're just yeah those stories just aren't being told uh nearly as often as all of these copaganda movies because there's just so many of them and a lot of them like i'm like damn it i this is a movie that i like but it's about cops and i just have to there's just like so much of that that i've had to unlearn i think it does come into like there there there are you know there is media that exists that is critical of police but they're also just like not funded or promoted to anywhere near the same extent. Like no one has ever heard of Den of Thieves, and yet it made $80 million. Like it is such an industry as well that it's like it, I don't know,

it feels so frustrating and so hopeless. And I think that there is potential, especially when reporting like yours comes out, Cerise, that it's like the more that the public is generally aware that this is just total bullshit, that we've kind of been spoon-fed as like easy content to consume, that hopefully that the desires of the general public will change and be less open and accommodating and willing to just fork over money to stuff like this. Yeah, I don't, it's very dark.

And then it's also just like so intuitive in the same way that it's just like, yeah, if you want to make a movie that's uh an accurate depiction of of what like it's just the idea that the only option is to center and consult cops like in what world are you going to come out with something that isn't just promoting cops and it just seems like that is the that's the media habit we're stuck in and it's and and it's only recently kind of being um questioned i mean it's like dogs are cops that's like a the most popular show for children is cop dogs yeah and i i feel like in, in the last several years, there's been, I mean,

there's been so many different takes on copaganda. There's so many ways to come at that, um, discussion. Uh, but it just seems like, yeah, like movies like 10 of thieves don't serve anyone.

Like it's just kind of garbage. And yeah, it's like referencing these gangs that christian whatever the shit his name is as aware of but then doing absolutely nothing to like criticize or comment on the behavior i mean aside from you know they again they're showing the these deputies like you know roughing up donnie and they yes they do do a big shootout and um murder a lot of people but again it's all about the framing it's like well they were bad guys they were robbers and that framing of like justified at the end when big nick kills um leah schreiber's brother the way that it's framed is like and this is like so

hard for him and he doesn't actually want to do it he just he has to do it and it's like no one has to murder anybody and and and the disingenuous framing of like oh don't you feel for this guy because he has to murder it's like right uh i don't know yeah it makes my head hurt but it's like but it is so normalized in that genre that when you watch it unfold these characters who literally admit to being the villain repeatedly um it's so stuck into this genre that it's like well even if they say they're the villain they're actually not and we love them and we're going to market it like that and we're going to make 80 million fucking dollars um so yeah on that no it doesn't pass the bechdel test it really doesn't

nowhere close sorry it does pass the stadium arcadium test which most movies don't yeah um so that's positive um and then as far as our nipple scale, zero to five nipples based on an intersectional examination of the movie. I'll just go ahead and give this zero nipples. I don't think it really deserves anything. Yeah. Let's give it a zero. Yeah, that's going to be a zero. Would you like to rate it it was horrible i mean i am i am genuinely very

happy that you brought this to us though because this is not normally the movie that we would cover and like we just don't cover this genre very much but it is definitely like important to talk about because a lot of people watch these movies like religiously and and it it definitely affects i mean it unquestionably affects the way that they view law enforcement and what they're they're like willing to permit from law enforcement because like like you pointed out, the most famous cop characters are constantly being terrible cops. And that's a part of the glorified image. And so much of the incredible reporting you've been releasing

reflects that to an absolutely horrific extent. So, yeah. Thank you so much for joining us uh yes thank you so much for having me we really we really really appreciate it um and uh thank you for bringing us uh feminist masterpiece den of thieves oh my new favorite movie i would have never discovered this without you so thank you so much um and where can we um where can we find your work and where can we find this series you're releasing this episode is going to come out tomorrow yeah you can follow me on twitter at cerise castle and you can find me on instagram

by you know typing that in as well you can read the series on the deputy gangs at knock.la tomorrow or today when this podcast is dropping, we will actually be releasing our chapter about the regulators. So you can read all about the gang. What timing. Yes, perfect timing. So head over there and you can read all about the deputy gang that big nick

was in and all the horrible shit that they do god damn thank you so much for for coming thank you so much for the incredible reporting that you're doing and um yeah i guess you can find the vectal cast in all in all the regular places the twitter Twitter, the Instagram. The Patreon, etc. Yeah. But yeah, please read the reporting that Cerise has done, is continuing to do, and the Patreon. Can you plug the Patreon again for Knock LA? Yeah.

Please support our Knock Patreon. Like I said, this work is it costs a lot of money to do and i'd like to keep doing it um so anything that you can spare is much appreciated yes please um and thanks for listening uh come back next week because we have um i think maybe our most impactful episode that we've ever released is coming out next week so definitely yes return for that right it's gonna be a it's very important all right bye-bye there's so much beauty in mexican culture like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even Lucha Libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask,

a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, Emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.

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Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba, and the piña colada from

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