The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - A White Undercover Cop Explains Taking Down The MOST Dangerous Crip Set | The Connect

Episode Date: January 6, 2024

Tegan Broadwater joins the show to explain exactly how he, a touring musician, became a cop in Fort Worth, Texas and ended up going undercover and infiltrating one of the most notorious Crip gang sets in all of Texas. He gives details of how he climbed the ranks, was almost found several times, had close encounters with death, and eventually took the set down in a 51 man roundup. Go Support Tegan! Life In The Fish Bowl Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578661624 YouTube: @UncommonSouls IG: https://www.instagram.com/teganbroadwater/?hl=en Website: https://teganbroadwater.com/ This Episode Is Brought To You By The Following Sponsors: Support the show and visit MOOD Go to https://hellomood.co/ and CONNECT20 for 20% off your order and code CONNECTFREE for a FREE 5ct pack of gummies! Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was going to meet him and talk about making this first quarter. And this jacked up dude that I don't know, Ope swings the door open and points a shotgun at us through the burglar bar door and starts screaming at us. What are you motherfuckers doing here? And blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, belonging. So I'm trying to talk everybody down against one of those deals where how am I going to explain this or we're going to have to shoot somebody and I'm here and nobody knows I'm here. That scared me to death. What's up, guys? On today's episode, we interviewed an undercover cop.

Tegan Broadwater is a former Dallas narcotics cop who went deep undercover and infiltrated the most infamous Crip Gang set in Dallas-Fort Worth. He embedded with Crip gang members for 18 months before his police work finally led to a 51-man RICO indictment. He's here to tell us how a white guy was able to assimilate and move up within the ranks of the Crips, finally taking down the-downs. the kingpin and causing this massive bust. You can go buy Teagan's book.

He wrote a book about it called Life in the Fish Bowl. Go to Amazon right now. You can also follow his YouTube page. And of course, if you want bonus content with Teigen, go over to patreon.com slash the Connect show. You're going to love this episode. Without further ado, Teigen Broadwater, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. So we get in there and the first thing happens,

unlock the burger bar, open the door, step in. It's a typical trap. You know, you got a couch, a table with some weights and a gun, and then a big screen TV. No sooner did we start having a conversation about what he had, I hear something eerily familiar. And it just so happens to be my own voice on an episode of cops from 1999. That's when I see lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it.

I was driving like my life depended on. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door. And I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shang, it's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive.

You're the first Texas lawman that we've had on this show. Oh, I hope I rep well, but I don't think I assimilate this as well as some. But happy to be here either way. You know, Texas, as it was formed as an extremely lawless place. Do you go back? Does your family go back in Texas or did you guys immigrate there? I don't actually know. You don't find my DNA in any of the sites. Right, right. I don't know. I had an uncle that went and did a bunch of digging, but I'm not actually, we're not from Texas originally, even my immediate family. Okay. Do you have law enforcement in your family? None.

Why did you want to be a cop? Or at what age did you decide? Interestingly enough, I was playing, I was a musician. by profession, went to college for music and everything else. Typical way you become a cop. Right. None of this stuff is going to be terribly obvious. Again, my representation is questionable. But I used to play this gig on the side, and so many cops used to come out and see it.

They just followed us everywhere we went. So I got to know all these cops. What were you playing? I was playing drums at the time. And again, I went to school for music, so I played a number of different instruments and stuff. But at the time, it was just, you know, rhythm and blues type of gig. something. And then, you know, when it came time that I got super frustrated with the music industry itself, I still loved music and playing music, but I was just frustrated with playing

a bunch of clubs in Oklahoma City that Coke had needed you to bring 500 people or this and that. It just, it was a beating. I know you know this. Brewery shows, we call them. In comedy. Those are your first five years of comedy. You got to get 10 friends out to do three minutes. It is. And look, I know what it is, what it is. And I know was a money deal, but some of these dudes were just crooks anyway. So it was just frustrating that they talked to me into entertaining law enforcement. So I thought, you know, it would be kind of cool, you know, to sign up for SWAT or something, you know, it would be kind of fun. So I asked if I could do that. Of course, you can't. And I had no business anyway. I'd never been fired a gun

before. I was a musician. Yeah. I was, you know, I was quite good at breaking up fights and talking people out of having fights up to that point. Yeah. And then I had my brother's, and I got assaulted also. We were at a club, and I was trying to find a bass player to audition. And a bunch of frat dudes were coming in the doors. I'm going out the door, just trying to squeeze by or whatever. And they just kind of, you know, mob muggy and followed us out to the car and started talking about the crap, you know, 10 dudes surrounding my brother and I am thinking, and this is

pretty unfair. You guys are sorry. So I managed to jump in, I managed to jump in the car and tried to let him in. but, you know, had one of those old Corsicas with a lock that was not automatic. So I had to reach across and try to let him. And they snatched a hold to him. So I had to get back out. You know, they got a whole bunch of a bunch of people.

So we ended up kind of sign languaging one another and managed to get the other door open. And he made a break forward, jumped in the car. And they started smashing all the windows, kicking in the sides of the doors. It was just a bunch of. That's old Texas lynching behavior. It was ridiculous. White boys? Yes.

A bunch of white. Now, if you had pulled out, if you were carrying, right, like many people in Texas do, obviously, I think like almost exclusively, and you would shot one of them and killed them, what kind of law either protects you or prosecutes you for that? Like, is there stand your ground the way there is in Florida? Yeah, there is. But you have a lot of articulating to do at that point. But I think it's articulable because, first of all, if you have a gun legally and then you're getting jumped. and beat by 10 different people, then essentially they now also have a gun

because you're not going to kung fu spin around, kick everybody's butt and then drive off safely. Because 10 on 2 is like having a gun. It's like a loaded gun. It's not going to work out. Yeah. So if I'm unconscious with a gun, then essentially now they have a gun.

And so you have to make a snap judgment. But all that has to be articulable after the fact, which always makes it interesting even in law enforcement. You know, when you get into big skirmishes and fights and stuff and people are critical of how, man, they kind of got together and we're talking and trying to get their stories straight. But, I mean, and I know you've been in fights too. When you've been in a fight and you five minutes later have to give a blow by blow, it kind of takes a little time for you to remember how this went down.

Because it was a big surprise. The dude starts swinging. We went here. But you have to be very descriptive when you're writing a report or defending yourself in a court. So you would need some time to be sure you could articulate every move. and at what point you justified having to pull that thing? Because obviously you're not thinking a lot during that time. You're reacting, right?

Yeah. Yeah, the South is fascinating because in certain circumstances, they will let somebody who really over defended themselves and, you know, pulled what's essentially negligent homicide or manslaughter and let them off scot-free. And then we've talked to people on this show and in the course of doing this, who very justly defended themselves against what would have been death, and they got railroaded into prison.

I know. I think it's county to county, state to state. Right. It's not consistent, though. Right. Do you think, you know, you were telling me that you're telling me you run a private company that's essentially an armed protection service. Right.

And your clients are high net worth individuals. And you, you know, if they're going to a public event, if they need to, you know, drive through town, wherever they're going, you kind of, you plan the routes, you have employees who are armed, strapped, and you are essentially their secret service, their bodyguards. Right. How great is the danger of Mark Cuban getting kidnapped in affluent, oil-rich Dallas, glittering high-rises? I get if you're in Venezuela.

I get if you are a general in Venezuela who has plundered billions from the people and half the children are malnourished and armed gangs with Uzi's control half of Caracas and you need to get from one end of the city to the other. I get why you need like a cavalcade. How great is the danger in first world America of kidnappings, shootings, etc.? Well, first of all, there's three aspects. One, it's not a super great percentage. However, it's super great compared to what you or I are dealing with on a daily basis. Now, part of the gig is not just, hey, we're looking for somebody that's trying to kidnap this guy. A lot of it is brand protection.

And, you know, having people run up and do things. Pranking somebody could be disaster. You go up to speak and you have mic cords are laying all over the stairwell in order to get up to the stage. I mean, there are things that run the gambit in order to get somebody to and from. They have to be on time. But moreover, if I or you were interested in taking Mark Cuban's money, you would go after Mark Cuban's family, not Mark Cuban. Right. So that is a lot less obvious because I don't know how many people on the street would recognize his daughter in a jump house and a McDonald's or something.

And so that's essentially where it could happen. And again, most of this is a concierge type of service on the outside with all the security and advance work being done ahead of time just to make sure that it's kind of a seamless to and fro. You know, a lot of this, anybody that's got any kind of a high profile has a difficulty going a lot of these places without some kind of harassment. You yourself, after getting out of the force and writing the book about your experience, which we're going to get into, you received death threats. Yeah. How serious did you take those? We took them very seriously. And ironically, I still have the same phone number as I did then because, I mean, you got to know, right? But my wife didn't sleep at the house for, I mean, if I was out working, then she was somewhere else. Or if I had a part-time gig or something to spend the night, you know, at a neighborhood. The only part-time jobs I could work as an undercover guy was, you know, working at a neighborhood in my personal vehicle. and plain clothes. Right. And then I'd have my wife and my kid in the bed of the truck, you know, with the seats folded down watching movies because they wouldn't go home. So we took them seriously. Of course, you would take them seriously. They're very personal. I mean, we've got death threats

on this show. I get DMs with like, keep, you know, keep the hell's angels names out of your mouth. And I get offended, but I don't feel scared for my life, but I'm also a cowboy. And, you know, clearly, I mean, we're down in Mexico with cartel members. We don't value our own lives that much. But I get why you with a wife and a kid would. But you infiltrated the Crips, a black gang, fair to say? Yeah. How much about that life are they?

Do they still have infrastructure? Are they crazy enough to actually kill a cop or kill an undercover cop? they are, I think. Now, it really, this is another interesting point about having been inside and learning more about them as people is that really, you know, when you look at going after the head of the snake and I'm flipping birds and this and that, but I started out buying, you know, buying a yard out of crack on the street just to help a dude out in order to get an intro to something else. That dude poses a bigger danger than anything because what does he have to lose? Not nearly. as much as this other do. And so the threats came from not these guys, because these guys were locked up. They came from family members and people that I had had conversations with and knew in the street. So I actually was privy to who was making these threats, whether by just a deduction and

figuring out who it is or whatever, because they were just sending texts or calling or whatever. It was, you know, pre- YouTube channel stuff. And I understand this is kind of not of a comparison either, really. It wasn't, you know, somebody from, you know, a random state or country. I mean, these were people that I worked inside my own city, rounded up 51 people and put them away, and then their family members that I had dealt with, who were still some loose cannons and some were not,

but were then launching these threats. And so, yes, and some of those kingpin guys were absolutely playing the game. It was very structured. Yeah. It was impressively structured even more than I thought. Great. All right, let's get into it. Because we've had a Crip gang member on here before,

and we got absolutely no information out of them. So that's why I, that's a good Crip, though. That's a good Crip. That's right. You don't talk to Whitey. So I'm glad we have you on because I do want to know about the structure because the Crips, the most famous street gang, probably in the world, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, Crips and Bloods. I mean, yeah. Their brand, they started off in South Central L.A. I believe is a protection against the bloods. Am I wrong? Yeah. Or maybe it was the other way around. Yeah.

I can't remember if... It was Tucky Williams and somebody else. Right. And they, you know, they were basically a neighborhood organization. Yeah. And the bloods are much smaller organization. Oh, okay. And size also.

Interesting. Yeah. At least at this point, they certainly are. But now they, and then in the 80s, crack became so flooded in LA that they started exporting all of their sets all over America including the Midwest.

And through the prison systems also. And that whole crack epidemic is like a whole another story because again it hit socioeconomically impacted hoods with that drug. And so that's why you have gangs running that thing instead of selling more sophisticated dope. Well, yeah, you know, because they're basically they're inside their neighborhoods working

at stuff. And so that's how it became associated. How do they operate now and when you were a cop in Dallas? What kind of presence do the Crips have in Texas and Dallas specifically? They have plenty of a presence. There was a time where they got a little smarter because in the early 90s, you know, cops would pull them over and just identify them by their tattoos. Yeah. You know, I mean, it did, it didn't make it hard. And then they started implementing laws against gangs who were practicing gangs. And so when you started getting certain strikes, you were getting arrested for having these identification marks.

And so they started trying to call themselves different things here and there. But it returned, you know, by the time I was doing this back in 2005, 6, 7, 8, they were still Crips. They were still Fortray, Hoover, Duce. you know, there were a lot of the similar names, you know, that had carried over, and they had family here even that had done direct kind of training, so to speak. So they had tears, but I didn't hear as much. So I didn't hear as much about who was a lieutenant, who was a this. The structure that I saw had a lot to do with if you're at a bottom level, then you're doing a lot more of the dirty work until you start getting the record, which is, I think that's typical. That's how gangs do.

They start recruiting sixth graders, you know, because, well, you're a kid. So if you get caught, you know, you're not going to do life. Yeah. And you're proving yourself in that way. So a lot of that's still happening even today, but it's a little harder to find today because they're a little smarter than just carving 4x3 across their chest every time. And nobody's outside anymore. Oh, they're outside.

And, you know, some of the better, smarter ones are, you know, when you make, it to the top, you're not making it to the top just because you're the most ruthless anymore. You're also by far the smartest. You have the least criminal history of maybe, so you've always been involved, you know, you don't have something, obviously, well, obviously you're out. So if you can have some tenure and you're out and you're a 30-year-old crip and you've got, you know, bodies on you, then you're going to be the dude. If you're smart. Right. If you're stupid, then you're eventually least any day you're going to be going away. Right.

And you're driving some kind of car that draws attention. You can pull over every minute. Well, some of these dudes had real estate licenses, owned multiple car lots and storage facilities and, you know, the way you do it, you know. What's the point of being a Crip when you're a successful entrepreneur? That makes you wonder, except that, you know, when you're doing 250 grand a week, then you're like, well, you could have done this managing. Well, never mind.

You're not going to make that good money. Right. Right. Okay. So if you're making $250,000 a week as. a high-level drug dealer. Why, how does that cross over with the Crips as a gang organization? It's a culture from the socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. It really is, it is about being in a poor neighborhood. And every, your family member is a Crip, your uncle's a pimp.

You're, you're living with your mom, but she has two jobs. So you spend half the week with your auntie or your grandma, and all the other kids are making, you know, $1,000 every week doing, you know, working as eighth graders, making $1,000 a week, you know, moving stuff. And your mother who sees you, you know, three hours a day is trying to encourage you to stay in school and go get a legitimate job, which is harder for you to do because of who you are and how your transportation is so limited that you can't go to some place across town and every time and be there on time. Yeah, you're an eighth grader.

Yeah. Or even if you're a high school kid. or an early collegiate-aged kid. You know, it's just not as easy. And once you're acclimated and just indoctrinated into that culture after so long, and you don't really have like a father figure, for instance, that has a disciplinary record, then you're leaning on your bros that are in the gang. And it's, you know, it's stupid, but it's just, it's not as stupid.

It's stupid to us because we see how ignorant it can be to why would you do that? Well, gangs are not stupid. stupid. They're a sociological phenomena and they exist all over the world. Yeah. You know, Hamas started out as a gang. So, and you can hardly blame them when you see the kind of conditions that they come up in. Hey, everyone, happy new year. I got to send a shout out to our longtime sponsor of the show, Mood, America's number one online dispensary for Delta 8 and Delta 9 products. If you live in a state where THC products are still illegal, don't worry. Mood has worked with the federal government to ensure the compliance of their Delta 8 and Delta 9 products, which are completely legal, not just statewide, federally legal to order, ship, and use. They have got an array of different edibles, pre-rolls, flour, all types of infused gummies.

I cannot recommend them enough. I use their products for almost every facet of my life, help with sleep, aches and pains, focus and relaxation, mood has you covered. Right now they have an amazing offer. If you go over to their website and use the promo code Connect 20, that's Connect 20, you will get 20% off anything on that website. Plus, as you know, if you're a longtime listener of the show, use promo code Connect free. That's C-O-N-E-C-T-free to get a free five-count pack of gummies. All you do is pay for shipping. It's totally free. Go check them out. I love them. Support them because they support the show. Thank you very much. Let's get back into it. What is the main economic activity now of the Crips? Is it still slinging? Yeah. It's still dope slinging.

Still dope. Selling guns and dope, but selling guns is not nearly as profitable selling dope. Okay. And it's still mostly Coke. I know the fentanyl thing is moving in, but I'm not as familiar with that because I've been out of that game for a while. Right, right. It's fentanyl's a new phenomenon. What about crap? So is crack still relevant in the streets? It still is because, I mean, you think about taking a bird and essentially turning it into almost two, you know, so that when you're putting that out in the street, it's blown up. So there's still market for rock cocaine. Yeah, absolutely. Because when I was growing up in the 90s, I was like, I mean, we had so much, because I went to public school.

I went to school with kids whose parents were crackheads, you know, I went to an inner city school. and we got so much scare, scared straight info about crack. I was like, oh, in a generation, this will be gone. Surely nobody will continue to smoke this. But I guess there's new crackheads evolving. I mean, again, I think it's all connected to opportunity. If you're in an area with you don't have an uncle that you can lean on to borrow $3,000 to start your company or whatever, those are the situations that you are passing down. You know, you grew up in a two-bedroom

apartment with eight kids, you know, that are on social services and you have an opportunity to start bringing in the money, then that's what you're around all the time. I just, I have a sympathy for that situation that's not right, but the circumstances are bad. And then as long as racially, you know, it's going to be something that systemically is still. an issue, then you're going to stay in a poor hood unless you're just the exception to that rule. The structure of it, is it such, like, say with the American mafia, you've got soldiers who earn in whatever lane that they're good at earning at, whether it's drugs, gambling, sports betting, whatever, that money kicks up to the boss. Are the Crips that organized, or is it like

everybody's just freelancing. If I'm a shot caller and I have a kilo of powder, I'm just hitting off the youngsters who are rocking it up. It's more simple than that. It's more simple like that. Because you're talking about the vast majority of the stuff happening is either beefs or moving product in order to have money. And so the dude with the product is the one that has the control.

And then he creates the people below him that are best to actually put their hands on it. and they'd only hold it for a second and, you know, give it in quarters to these guys that drive it to all the traps. You know, so it's more of a drug operation than anything. Okay. Which is why, that's why I leveraged because it's easier for me instead of saying, hey, man, can I jump in? You know, can I be a crib? Yeah. It's easier for me to say, man, and my source got busted by the feds and I was, you know, he was in Austin and I was moving stuff from, you know, from there.

I've got a bunch of, you know, clients over here at TCU area across town from where they were. so I'm not a competitor. I'm an opportunity. Yeah. And I just thought, man, how would I start this myself? Like if I were sociopathic and just thought, I really want to do this? Yeah. That's where I would start.

Okay, let's talk about this then. So given that background, yes, how did you first break the chain? How did you embed with Crips? And how did you become a cop for bringing us up to that point? Yeah. Well, I mean, my whole goal and, and becoming a cop was to work undercover just because of my tenure as a musician. I just felt like I could get along with everybody.

I was the minority in all the bands I played in. So I felt like I was really relatable. And I thought it would be good at that. So once I finally figured out how to do that, I was making buys from patrol division and writing papers up the chain to see if I could work undercover stuff until I could qualify to go to narcotics and whatever, just trying to earn my way through that. process. I finally got a

deal going. And as I worked, we were finding out that there was an area of town that I actually used to patrol in, which is even more ironic, that was, you know, one way in, one way out, lookouts everywhere. Where is this? In Fort Worth,

in East Fort Worth, southeast Fort Worth. And that's the hood. Yeah. And that's what we deem the fishbow. It was a crypt set there that was divided into two where they both had a game happening on both sides. They had different street level guys. It's different mid-level guys. They had different cooks.

But they were still getting it from the same source who was still within some of the other neighborhoods still Crip-related. So everything, again, tiered up. Yeah. But that neighborhood, they went to the city council and the chief of police and said, we need to clean this up. How do we get through this? because within that, as in any drug and gang-infested areas,

there were families in there just trying to make it. Of course. And again, you're a poor neighborhood. So you've got an 80-year-old grandma who's lived there for the majority of her life. And then you say, well, man, this is a terrible neighborhood. You should move. Well, you know, that's what people say. Yeah.

You know, you should totally move out of here. And you should get a job. And then all this would be over, you know. So it sounds like my family members of Thanksgiving for the first 20. years of my life. Yeah. Yeah. So the purpose was to clean that neighborhood up because the people that are trying to make it deserve an opportunity to try to make it. And so when I first pitched this, it just came to mind. They were running, you know, jump outs, running warrants and hitting dry holes. You know, there was something was being tipped off. Turns out there was a source inside the PD as well.

What does that mean? They had a corrupted. They had an informant at the very least. It was, yeah, It wasn't on the tank as much, but grew up in the neighborhood and was feeding them information. If they knew that paper was going to be served, then it would get served. They'd kick in a door and there'd be nothing in there. It's amazing. How often that happens. Right, right. So, you know, pulling over people leaving and stuff like that.

But again, it's not just a drug operation. It's the Crip organization that's running it. So it was iron-fisted and even some of the lieutenants were getting smashed. And you have people drive down there and hear there was dope and they beat their ass and leave them on the side of the street because you're not just welcome to come in there and, you know, turned it into a 7-11 because they had their, they had their system down. So you couldn't open up like a crack house and start serving in the fishbowl. Oh, no, no, no, no. So were there drive-by shootings? Like, you know, classic LA drive-by shootings. Is that kind of thing happened in Dallas or Fort Worth?

Oh, yeah. I know. I knew it was happening while this was going on. We had, we lost a dude that was out there that got shot in his front yard. Again, it's just over stupid beefs. Again, it's gang beefs. that in my opinion, if you were really running a tight-knit operation, you'd be like, man, you're drawn way too much attention to what we're doing here. But it's not, it's not just about drugs and drug money. It's about gang-banging. That seems like the majority of the gang-banging now is not over any real money. Well, this was real money, but the gang-banging, in my perception, seemed like a separate thing. I mean, we're gang-banging, but we're going to make our nut by moving cocaine. I mean, that's just, you're going to make our nut by moving cocaine. I mean, that's

just what they were doing. They didn't aspire to be, they wanted to be a big timer, but they wanted to still be the big gang guy. They don't want to just be just a dope dealer. So that's still the psychology of a lot of these guys. It's not just to be a successful drug dealer. It's to be a hard rock. Like it's to be, you know. And they'll still use, they'll still use deploy of, you know, we're protecting the neighborhood from a lot of stuff. You know, how much bad stuff's around here. You know. Yeah. And every gang does that too, Hamas to the, to the to the Italian mobbed, everybody. They'll leverage that kind of a justification for it.

So I had decided after I'd been doing this kind of work, I pitched to an informant, then we went and sat down over a whiskey, and I said, all right, here's my idea. We're doing, they've been doing all these things trying to,

to break into the fishbowl. And I know we know who a bunch of the players are. So my plan is I'm going to go in, start making buys. I'm going to tell them, you know, that my, my guy got busted by the feds.

And so I don't have a connect. I'm trying to, you know, kind of link in to kind of start over, but I have the money. You're trying to buy powder. Yeah. Okay. Ultimately, it's what I want to do because if you go, but you can't just start buying powder. You know, this, you don't just pull up as a newbie and say, hey, man, where can I find two hours? Right.

Yeah, especially there. So when he finished laughing his ass off, I said, no, dude's like, for real, this is, we're going to be able to make this happen. Why was he laughing because you're white? Yeah, I mean, look at this. You know, so. Yeah, but white. But let me ask about that. You know, the majority of people who use hard drugs are white.

That's statistically, I mean, they're the most, the biggest population. Well, yeah. They're the most money. So how does that work like in a place like Dallas with Crips? Can crackheads, white crackheads from the suburbs or heroin addicts, whatever it is, can they come get served? Yes. In places like the fishbowl? Yeah.

I mean, if you're, yeah. But they don't discriminate. Yeah. Well, if you're missing a shoe and you've been, you know, me. up with the hookers that literally at the end of the street that board of the fishbowl, they know who you are too. Obviously. Yeah.

So if you need a corner dude, they're going to take care of that or whatever. But for the most part, and it's almost part of the pathetic painting of how this works, is they sell amongst each other more than really getting outside of the hood and moving that stuff outside. Now, once you get to a certain weight, you kind of don't know where it goes. Right. But a lot of this, you know, was tight-knit. And so the vast majority, I mean, with few exceptions, were black guys.

They were coming in there. And was your first informant who you sat down with and pitched this to? Was he a black guy from the neighborhood? He was, I have a black guy and a white guy that I worked with. And the white guy was a crackhead. And the black guy wasn't a crackhead, but was the perfect middleman because he just was always trying to be a somebody. So and what I leverage them for is when I went down the first time, I would act like I'm the money guy.

Since this guy's obviously a user, he wants to get a little score, a little something, but he's trying to start a little hustle. Yeah. So he's telling me where to go, and I'm going down there, and as people come up, start asking all these questions,

I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't, I'm not touching none of that stuff. This is for my boy, ever, you talk to him. So they go over and talk to him, and he would tell him what he wanted. And then when he'd tell him what he wanted, I'd slip him a C-note and then he would, you know, pay for it and take care of it. I was acting like the hands-off guy. Okay, okay.

So I was acting like his money guy. Like, I'm hooking my bro up up here. He's trying to get out and do his hustle thing. So is that pretty wild? Like when you first go in there, you're in this like cordoned off neighborhood. Are you scared? Absolutely. Do you have backup?

Do you have people that can, if you start getting in a gunfight, you know, or down the road? This is how it works. This is how it worked for me. This is not how it actually works. I had a leadership level supervisor that kind of let me do my thing and understood that I was going to do something smart with myself. And because normally, if you set something up like that, you've got a bunch of, you know, you've got six white dudes and Ford Explorers and baseball caps and whatever. Too obvious. Never going to work.

Because to be close enough. So what I would do is I would call on a. cell phone line, I would call one of the guys I used to be in patrol with in that area and tell him, hey, I'm about to do this or that. And if I say, you know, if I say, you know, man, that's the shit, then drive through the front door and come get me. Yes. Yeah. So I figured that would be easier anyway because they, they can run lights and sirens and disrupt anything that's about to go down. But you're strapped though, right? Completely off the books. Yeah, I was strapped. as were all them.

I mean, I had no advantage. You're sitting in a car with a piece, then, I mean, say goodbye. Yeah. You might die with it halfway pulled out of your drawers. Yeah. Shoot your dick off or something. Yeah. If you don't do that. That was the suicide method.

Yes. That's the that's the harry-cari of Dallas. Same type of person that would take anaphrase to kill themselves with. So, yes. It's scary in that it was ominous. and a rush. I feel like, and I've heard you talk about

like what a rush it is just to be in that game. And I had an interesting perspective on that because I felt like, man, I'm rolling the windows down. I got my music blaring. I'm doing my thing.

So I felt a little bit of that vibe happening. Only I didn't have any of the upside. I only had the downside. You know? Yeah. Because I'm not making Jack on this. You're making a city salary.

And I'm, it's out of, principle. I mean, it really is. I really just thought, man, this, this is a, a noble thing to do because this neighborhood really needs cleaning up. And, you know, I'm a hippie, I'm a hippie musician guy. Do you think, honestly, that street rips and cleaning up drug dealers from a neighborhood long-term helps the neighborhood? No, but that's not what I was doing. I wasn't cleaning up drugs. It was clean up gangs. Don't you think they just come back, though? they can come back. It depends. See, because in this case, half these houses they used were dilapidated and, you know, boarded up or needed to be condemned or whatever. And they owned half of the properties in there. Oh. So they bought the houses. Yeah. Once it was eradicated, then they had, you know, people coming in and fixing up fences and planting gardens and putting layers of paint. And then they rent them out to somebody who can afford a nice place. It wants a nice place for their kids. And then you replace them with them while they're in prison.

obviously the cycle is the main thing that really got me motivated to write this book too because the cycle is the key because now if you mentor the kids that are left, we had 104 kids left after we did a roundup. So you're basically just counting down the years and trying to recruit the next undercover that can start knocking them down, which is only this is a cog in the solution. This isn't the solution. No. So they need to be arrested, yes. and we need an opportunity to clean up the neighborhood, yes, and salvage the people that are trying to make it so they can get out of poverty, yes.

But then you have to mentor these kids that come out of there so that they don't end up being who their fathers were. Right, because you've just removed, yes, you've gotten rid of gang members and drug dealers, but you've just removed all the men from the neighborhood. Yeah, right. And in a lot of cases,

you know, I'll say it's the fathers is a general term, and we've got guys in there that name their kids, who've a deuce. So it was, it was good and bad. Like I said,

it's an ugly situation. And a lot of these guys really got to know over time. I really liked them. And I was rooting for them to flip or whatever and get in time. I testified on behalf of, was it,

four or five, four or five of them. I actually testified on behalf of their character so that they would get less time. Get leniency. The guys that I liked. Uh-huh. That felt like had a lot of promise,

you know, Let's, this is, I'm digressing. No, it's okay. It's okay. I just want to, I want to move through this. But it's good that we know the motivation, you know. And I think when I talk to a lot of cops, that's the story I get is they come in sometimes idealistic. But it's, they, I think a lot of cops do feel like, especially an undercover work, like they are helping the neighborhood.

Like, they're there for a purpose. Spring weekends are all about family, sunshine, and even. evenings on the patio. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local Total Wine and More to grab a great bottle to share. With such a wide selection and the lowest prices, it's easy to find something amazing for everyone to enjoy. If you're not sure what to pick, their friendly guides can help. Find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More. Shop Total Wine and More in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly.

B-21. Yeah. So, so this is how you're betting yourself. So you're the money guy. You start off just buying like what? Like, what does a hundred bucks get you? There's a, you know,

a gram. Like a, gram. Is a gram of Coke? A hundred bucks in Dallas? It was. I mean, it could have been.

What years this? In 2005, six, seven, eight. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay.

So, and is this good Coke? Do Crips? Do black street gangs generally, is there re-up Mexican cartels? Yes. So, yeah, my kingpin was getting it direct. So, yeah. And they know how to make it.

They know how to make it good and they know how to make it bad. And this was literally that neighborhood with that six square block area had really crappy dope and straight drop where you could buy basically within that same neighborhood. Man, you got all the gangster slags straight, drop, bro, you're a fucking G, dog. I've had some people just laugh at me. Any of the terms I know, they're like laughing thinking, I was in third grade and that used to be, I don't know. Like I said, I'm not actively in this kind of thing.

So, so, but the shot callers know how, they really know how to handle Coke. Yeah. So they either have, uh, they have good shit that they charge more for or they have BAMR that they've diluted and that's probably and that's cheaper and that's crack. Right. What's a $3? Can you get like a $5? hit, a $3 hit?

I didn't even mess of that. I'm sure, yes, but I didn't go that low. Because, again, I didn't want to be so obvious. Me even spending $100 for crack as a guy set up the way I was. Yeah. Driving around in a bends and a, you know, a TCU shirt or whatever. Or even purposely a Steve Young jersey, which is bright red. Why?

Why? Because if I'm ignorant to the gang aspect and I'm moving weight and I'm used to just trying to get my game back on. Then I can leverage the intelligence that I get from them telling me not to wear it. And this is why you don't wear it and whatever. And that's all. Oh, because then you look ignorant. You're like, oh, I didn't know you guys are on the other side. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, I didn't act like I'm a complete idiot. I've never heard of Crips or whatever. But that wasn't my purpose there. So when that gets explained to me, I know I'm in the right place. And it gives me an open door to start asking questions about, man, well, who's the guy?

It's like, is this okay that I'm dealing with you, whatever, and they'll explain. Okay, so how did you, hey, yeah, how'd you move up the ladder? I like. So what I started doing is I would start coming down there by myself and asking for people that I knew weren't gone. So that was the next step. So then I would start making tracks in, but I was looking for someone. I wasn't spending money at first. So what I would do, I'm working on a limited budget.

So I would take 100 ones and, you know, 1020s. and wrap it up in a wad. And, you know, the rip is the main concern that I have. But I also got to look like I'm carrying money. Right. And so I go up and I say, I'm looking for this cat. And they said, well, he's not here. And I said, when he's going to come back?

And they're like, I don't know what you're looking for. You know, they're trying to hit me up. And I said, well, man, I, you know, I'm not looking for nothing harder. I got a bunch of folks on the west side. So, you know, I'm looking for that soft. He said, man, come on. You know, they start talking me. And I'll say, look, maybe I can get something to move.

So, you know, give me a yard. I'll see what I can do. You know, just for if you, if you will tell him that I was here to see him, man, just let me know. So next time I could link him or whatever. And these are street level guys. And I'm leveraging them more for the information to get me the introductions to the next level dudes. Okay.

So you're just doing this on purpose to be able to buy for more street level people, identify people. Right. And ultimately, like, get them to flip. Ultimately, either flip or move me. I need, I need you to introduce me to the guy. I just asked you about it. And I know you don't get it direct, but I know you get it from him who gets it direct.

So even if you link me here, my whole goal was to make sure, though, that I was dealing with Crips the whole time. Because before you know it, you can take a left turn and you're just dealing with drug dealers. And then I have a different case altogether. What is the advantage of why Crips specifically? Is that because you can get a gang enhancement? Well, you can. Yeah, because it's essentially a gang case. And we solved nine cold case murders out of those things.

People start opening their mouths about stuff like, you know, you know, Pookie's got two keys in his living room. I'm like, I don't care about keys anymore. I said, well, he shot that dude over at the stop and shop. So, oh, well, I think I got somebody that wants to talk to you. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. So, again, it's just close-knit. You're talking to a bunch of people that are either affiliated or know somebody directly.

So I would either do that or just say, hey, man, if you need to move something, I'd be happy. the last time the stuff was kind of bunk. So, man, clean it up if you can get, and then they start explaining who's got what supply and all that kind of stuff. Wow. So they really open themselves up to you. Eventually. So when people start giving me the 20 questions, obviously, you know, I pull up, I'm still

getting a million questions. And, you know, are you the police? I'm about to ask you, you're the police. What, you know, you don't look like you're wearing the same, you know, gear. What's going on with that? And they, and I also don't answer those questions. I think most cops, especially if they're not. new, well, here's my driver license. This is my name. And, you know, I, I swear I'm,

I'm not a cop. And I, you know, I just want to buy this much, whatever. I would say no right away. If they're like, man, where are you from? You, you know, what's your real name? Is that your real name? Is like, hey, man, I don't answer these questions. If you want to do business, cool. If you don't want to do business, cool, I'll find somebody else wants to do business. And if they told me to go pound sand, I would go down the block and meet up with somebody else, and they'd make some money. And I'd drive off. And then I'd come back and meet with the dude I was looking for. And then they'd start being like, hey, man, and they flagging me down the next time I come in, like, hey, you know, T, what's going on? And I'd go by T. And they'd flag me down.

And before you know, I'd get some of those dudes that would roll me around and, you know, say, these are some dudes that we might be able to get you in. They've tried to get me intros. So I was leveraging informants at the beginning just to have a, what's the word I'm looking for, a plausible reason for being there. Yeah. So you start off buying a yard, which is like $100, something like that. And then what do you, you step up to like ounces? You're supposed to be a white, you're supposed to be like a middle class.

Quarter keys. Just went from there to quarter keys at that point. All way to nine ounces. Yeah. Okay. That's a lot of Coke. But part, but here's the beautiful thing that happened. It is a lot.

But if your connects are all swearing by me, now there's no informants here. These are all your own people are introducing me to you. Sam, man, T's good. We haven't, man, I do this, this, this. And he knows that he knows who's, whose is what. And I'm getting introduced by those same people. These guys don't deal in small amounts anyway. So if I'm, the higher I get, the more difficult it's going to be to make buys before

I have to get bigger money. because I'm working on a city NARC budget. Which is how much? Dude, I was spending a thousand bucks a week, which, again, all I'm doing is buying samples, essentially, and making promises that, man, we're going to make this work, let's sample this out. But I'm thinking, how am I going to get this freaking money?

I mean, eventually you got to, you know, get off the pot. Did you get pushback from your superiors who were like, dude, we can't just keep in you a thousand bucks? I mean, it literally didn't have it. So we went fed shopping. is what we did. And, you know, I took my case to the DEA first thinking that would be cool. And they were like, hey, this looks like this would be a cool case. Give us the names and everything else. And we'll take it from here. Thanks. And I was like, no. Yeah, this is my shit. Yeah. So the FBI was the perfect fit. They had a gang task force person that was assigned to the city gang unit. And so they transferred me there and assigned me to the FBI. So I essentially was put under the supervision of a single FBI agent who was busy working on another case in the beginning. which was not her fault. She was just busy.

And I got assigned under her. She was the only one assigned to that gang task force. So what I got was rangeovers with cameras. And if I needed to buy a key, then I would just ask for $16,000 and we'd do it. And because they have so much confiscated money. The resources are there when you're dealing with feds. And I had a case that was actively working.

It's not like, hey, I want to try to butt break in with these guys. But I was already rolling. But my problem was I was only, going to get this far before someone starts calling Bulls on me anyway. Right. You know, because eventually you got to pony up the money and start moving something because everybody's seen me buying samples and dealing with different people, but they're going to figure out that I never really spend any good money. Right. So I did. Does that become, because now you're using the fed's money and resources, does it now become a Fed case? Yes. Even though you're a local. Yes. Okay.

So you're assigned me to the feds. Oh, interesting. So a lot of these Fed's money, cases for street-level gang stuff are actually carried out by local or city cops. A ton of them are. That's interesting. A ton of them are. There's not a ton of feds. Now, feds do all that work, but not in bulk and there's not that many across the U.S. But if you link with these big metropolitan cities that can create cases that you can adopt,

that makes sense. And they didn't adopt. I know in your case, they tried to adopt your case, but this was, an ongoing case. So their whole thing was, we have one person in charge of this thing. Yeah. And so you're going to be the undercover. We just will give you resources. Now, I still didn't have all the resources I needed. Right. So you're essentially a one-man federal operation. It's, man, it's no sleep either. That's crazy, bro. Yeah. And then, okay, let me ask you this before we get into like the bigger buys, are you, like I just imagine, I'm picturing McNulty from the wire. Okay.

Like you've seen the wire? Yeah. Okay. I didn't get to see all of it because, again, I was doing this work during the wire. Right. I got four hours and it's just wearing me out to watch this happen again. So love it. Is, are you writing, are you dictating?

Like if you go make a buy and get contact with, you know, a couple of dealers and gang members, are you going back and writing it all out? Yeah. So here's the other little secret that I used. So when I would take notes, I would, I had. knot rag galore in my car. So I would just take it like a nasty napkin or something right down a license plate. This guy was pooky. He was about this tall. He had a tat of a something on his forearm, you know, just sold him or whatever so that I could go back later and investigate who the guy was.

Now, just because I'm paranoid, I would write a report and it would say, you know, purchase of whatever, assign a report number, send it to the lab and then say C supplement and not write a supplement. yet. Because what I worried about is, you know, you go in our narc office and there's filing cabinets full of stuff. So if somebody wanted to see everything I was doing, they could go in and start pulling files just if they're curious even. Not that I thought anyone working with me would. I was just really paranoid about leaks. Yeah. Even just not crooked cops, but just bad cops. Right. Just ones that aren't, you know, paying attention enough. There's plenty of those. Plenty, right? So I was in so far already.

that I just could not afford that kind of, especially if they screwed up something and I didn't know. So essentially, between me and my boss who was protecting me from everybody else, I would keep my own notes on the side that were written, but I would leverage them with some of those notes that I would take out in the field. Right. Because as a cop, I feel when you're putting a case this big together, you really have to have the documentation together or else a good lawyer can in court say, hey, he, he didn't follow the rules. Yep. And, you know, people could get off.

Absolutely. So you really like, that seems like the worst part about being a cop is the paperwork. Yeah. Well, when I went to the feds, it got worse. You're right.

It was four times worse on the paperwork. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. IOC for your bathroom break. Right. Right.

So, okay, so you've got fed money now. Um, and you're, you're picking up. Who sold you a quarter of chicken? Who sold you,

you know, a nine. So one of the, first dudes that came out on my first ride through stepped outside the house. And I knew who he was, but obviously wasn't trying to talk to him because I wasn't supposed to know nothing. And he had stepped out. He was one of the guys that ran one half of the block. And he was just stepping out to kind of watch this thing go down and see, see whatever happened. He had a sidekick who was a dude that had just gotten out of state prison on parole for an ag robbery. And they'd been

through all kinds of crap, you know, with their gang stuff. They've shootings in their house and all kinds of stuff that had been going on on a regular basis. These guys were just into all kinds of a mess. But they were, I would say, intermediate level guys. Like, you know, there were two steps above, you know, any of these people I'm dealing with. Right. So they knew who I was. And those were the guys where I started eventually starting to meet in my first meeting. with him was almost a disaster too because I brought my informant head of dude that was from South Texas who was a Hispanic guy who had been dealing with some of the big wigs and the Los etas at the time who was a connection there and and he brought his own pistol to the to the game I

went to go pick up my guy to go do this thing and he brings Carlos with him and he's like and I don't trust Carlos I don't know Carlos and I'm doing my usual thing like I'm calling one of my partners in patrol on the horn. He's going to be a half a mile away listening over a phone. And I got one dude that I don't even know, but I've already heard all the stories. And so that was the first time that we went to actually his house. It was like a big break through for me because, as you know,

these cats don't lay their heads where they make all the mess. And when you get invited to their house house, you're like, man, this is, I'm making some headway. Right. So I was going to meet him and talk about making this first quarter. And it's dark. You know, the streetlights, half of them don't work. And you're walking up to a burglar bar door.

And I got these two jackasses with me. One of them is a spanish guy that I don't even know. And I'm thinking, I'm trying to make this work. But informants are a real pain in the ass. So I'm just trying to make the best pay that I could. And this jacked up dude that I don't know, Ope swings the door open and points a shotgun at us through the burglar bar door. and start screaming at us,

what are you motherfuckers doing here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, because, again, we're knocking on his boy's door, and he doesn't know who we are. And his boy barely knows me anyway. So I just start trying to calm everybody down and just thinking about where I'm going to move. If I have to shoot this fucker, I'm going to get off the stairs.

Because you're staring on these, it's a three-step thing with no guardrail up to a burglar bar door. And you're standing on these stairs. What's a burglar bar door? Like a barrier. Just like a wrought iron door that's stuck to the outside of the door frame and then locked with another deadbolt. And do these neighborhoods, do these houses look like something you'd see in Detroit? Yeah, they're similar.

They're the old, the old cladboard 40s and 50s built. Yeah. A lot of abandoned like lots around, you know, grass growing. Yeah, the house, one house half burns down and then leave it. Right. Okay, gotcha. This is like southern poverty. You don't see that a lot.

No. Where we're from. Yeah. And it's, you know, concentrated too. Yeah. Yeah. So, and this house was functional. Obviously, the burglar bar doors is a very common thing.

Some dudes would build like a cage, you know, where they'd cover the patio. And then when they got really smart, they'd put one of those inside. Wow. So you try to run a warrant on that. Probably the first door open, smash the second door and walk into a cage. And that you're trapped in the cage. Yeah. But this wasn't that case.

Okay. So I'm trying to talk everybody down against one of those deals where, how am I going to explain this? or we're going to have to shoot somebody and I'm here and nobody knows I'm here. So it's all this yapping. And finally my guy runs to the door, calms him down, so what the hell are you doing? And, you know, screaming at him, you know, T, it's cool. Don't worry about it. You know, he unlocks the door and we kind of walk in.

He goes, man, who's the, I don't remember what he called him, called him something derogatory. But Carlos then pulls his pistol from his mouth and runs over to the shotgun dude and pins him against the wall by his neck and shoves the gun. in his mouth. He drops the shotgun that he was carrying, and now it's worse because it was just a scene where I was freaking out. I'm thinking I'm finally making some progress, and there's going to be a shooting that's going to end this whole thing. If not somebody. Yeah, if not that, then it's for sure going to be the end of this case. Yeah. But only one dude kind of knows this happening. And it's going to be a train wreck. Now, what kind of obligation when you're working undercover and there's one guy who shoves a gun in another guy's mouth? As an officer,

like you're supposed to defend first and foremost. What kind of obligation do you have to like say, case is done? I got to save this guy's life. Do they train you on that? Do they tell you that? Not so specifically that. But yes, your general obligation is that. However, long term, if you think of the goal that you have, why do we start doing this in the first place? Both of these fools

need to be racked up and put behind bars. Really? So for me to end this now, knowing how much more I have to go, because I'm just now getting my first intro to an intermediate level dude. And so I've got all these low-level dudes and then this guy possibly on the hook, I'm not, that wasn't even a consideration. I can tell you that. Now, stopping this from turning into a shooting absolutely was a consideration because, again, it ends everything. So I've stepped on the shotgun. This guy's screaming in Spanish and the guy I was with spoke Spanish and their year. yelling at each other in Spanish.

My guy's trying to talk them down. The other formant I brought with me is trying to speak Spanish to him to talk sense into him because I'm just trying to tell people, calm down, calm down. It's cool. It's cool. And I'm looking at my guys. Like, dude, this is cool. So the guy eventually pulls the gun out and curses and walks back out to tell him to

wait at the freaking car. Like, step outside, dude. You're a freaking mess. Some gangster shit. And this, so this guy just walks to the sink and start spitting teeth and, you know, in the sink. You break your teeth. Yeah.

If you were broken a tooth and I got one right here that the sensitivity is pretty bad. But, I mean, obviously he was bleeding because he got his gun, I mean, he got his gums chopped up. But at that point, it literally was, man, I need to get this fool away. I apologize for bringing this to your house. And even at that point, I was worried that we weren't going to have a deal. But there was no point then to say, hey, man, you want to negotiate something? Because at that point, I mean, I got this dude standing outside of his house. that's a complete train wreck.

He's got a guy who's got to render aid to. I said, man, let me hit you up again. He's the man, don't worry about it. I'll hit you up. And I think it gave me some street cred instead of destroying my opportunity. It built an opportunity. Okay. So until then I was able to actually reach out with a phone call,

show up, have a conversation alone and felt better about being alone because then it was, he was relieved too. That didn't bring anybody. Right. Yeah. And then just did your typical thing. You know, they name the spot. I make sure the spot's clear.

If we move once or twice, fine. I don't think we even moved around that much. Yeah. And I brought somebody again. I tried to do it. The first time I did that, I assimilated to the first way I did it, which was I pull up, he jumps in the car and he starts to hand me the stuff. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't want the stuff. I just want to know that you have it and gave him the money. I said, go back there and give it to him. He got out of my car, goes back into the other car. And again, I'm making it sound like it. like we can't trace this transaction. Like it's not a legitimate transaction. That's obviously a legitimate transaction.

If you have an informant back there accepting the dope on your behalf, same with, you know, the small stuff with the car. I'm like, hey, I don't want to touch it. I'm just going to sit here and watch you do it, hand him the money and pretend like that you can't make a case on that. Right. Which you can. Yeah. But that was the same kind of hands off way because, again, if I'm bigger than they are just coming from that kind of elk, then obviously I'm going to be more careful. Right.

You know, and I'm not just going everywhere they want to go and just making this super easy. I want to have some control too. And that's the way I leverage control. Do you pick the spot? And if you're going to make the delivery, deliver it to him. I'll give you the cash in you. Right. So that after buying nine ounces, how long until you get up to bricks?

And did you, was your goal to meet that guy's guy? Yes. And were you successful in doing it? Yes. And not long, but here's how it worked. because the FBI was not terribly excited about spending tons of money on this. They had the money. I mean, in comparison, it wasn't even funny.

But this guy's sidekick, I told you, there was kind of their enforcer dude that had just got out on the ag robbery. He and I wrote around one day, and we were just, I can't remember why we were riding. We were just riding around. You know, sometimes they'd hop in the, I have a bends, you know, so they'd hop in the bins. We go cruising around sometimes. and he started asking me if I'm carrying. I said, yeah, I'm carrying. And, you know, this is what I use is a little, you know, hidden hammer,

you know, 38 something, you know, whatever. And I didn't mind showing it to him because if I'm showing it to him, now it's in my hand. I'm ready anyway, you know, and I'm not pretending. Again, yeah, I'm strapped. You know, I don't do all the movie stuff either. You know, you're not going to pat me down and make me do a bump and what I don't, I don't play into that.

Yeah. So you don't have a vest on, though, do you? No, no, no, no. I'm just, you can't. No. Too obvious. No. So at that point, he pulls out this Clint Eastwood 45 that he's got.

This dude's like 5A. Oh, shit. And he must have reached his knee. He's like, check this puppy out. And it was awesome. It's like a magnum? Yes. 357 magnum.

Yes. Freaking wheel gun, man. It was awesome. So I was like, man, that's pretty good. And after we talked, he's like, man, I just want you to know, man. If you get any flack from these fools out here, I know some people talk stuff, but you're good with us, man. and if you ever need anything, you let me know, I'll take care of you. So I had essentially an enforcer who was saying,

I kind of got your back if you run into any problems out here. And so that is essentially what took me from this level to the next level, because what happened was there was a dude that is a dork and a half on the east side that came into a bunch of money. And when he came into a bunch of money, he wanted to start flipping it. It's the same thing that happened. And we paid a big informant one time. It's 50 grand.

It lasted him a month. He bought a car and a couple of keys. Hold on a dude on the east side of Dallas, Fort Worth. A white boy? No, actually, it was a black guy. But he, I don't understand. So he, you got word that he was trying to start moving product? Right.

He's trying to move product. And he's, nobody's interested in dealing with him because he just came into this money. And even though he's from the neighborhood and been around the neighborhood, but nobody's interested in saying, hey, let's get a kilo for this guy. Yeah, yeah. Nobody's interested in it. How did you find out about this guy? I just knew him from moving in and out of the neighborhood.

So eventually, eventually I could literally roll, and this is the smaller part of the neighborhood, the fishbowl. But then you graduate out into the other side that is still part of Crip territory. You know, by that time, I'd been doing so many deals. I was walking into kitchens when they're cooking and whatever. And people were flagging me down and saying, what's up, or riding. around getting my car wash at the car wash, asking me if they can get introduced to TCU, cheerleaders.

And, you know, it was just, part of my whole thing was, if I'm going down there every day of the week, practically, it can't be to buy dope every time. No. So half the time I would go down again and ask, hey, man, where's Joe at, whatever? And they would say, any in here. I'd say, oh, well, and I'd pull out a, you know, a four-pack.

You know, we'd sit and split a beer or run up to the car wash, and we just chat. So your idea is like you want to be seen as someone who's not just there buying drugs all the time, but just kind of wants to have his thumb on the pulse of, you know, he wants to make better connections. Right. Well, I do, but I don't want them to think that. So I'm literally coming down.

What's the point of being down there if you're not buying? Well, because I'm asking for somebody that I know is not there. I see. So then it's just conversational. What you up to? Then I know people. So then the other part of town, too, I would drive around and people would hit me up, hey, T, you know, whatever.

And if I really don't know who these people are or, and in my mind, if I don't know they're a Crip, then I'm not interested in just doing a deal anyway. So I did get to a point where once we started buying a little bit more, it's harder for a street-level kid to come up and say, man, let's do it, whatever. And for me to do that almost look bad. Yeah. Because I was starting to come up and was kind of the guy. Nobody knew how much stuff I was really moving.

which was nothing, obviously moving. What were you spending with them every week or every two weeks? This is how it happened. So this kid with all the money that's not getting any traction is asking me, man, how do you do this? Because he knows I'm the other square in this equation. And I said, man, I'll tell you what, I have a connect. And I know you're from this side of the neighborhood. Again, fishbowls here, the other part of the neighborhood's over here.

I've just been breaking in. but I'm looking for my guy who lives over here. My kingpin is over here. A lot of the bigger runners that are moving weight to other distributors are over here. So I'm trying to figure out introductions over here. This guy knows these people, but he's not working with them, but he knows them well. He's been around him for so long. Yeah.

Then I tell him, man, I tell you what, do me a favor. If you're looking to get whatever it is, he was wanting to get a bird to flip with his, the first number of money that he, whatever he had. I said, I'll tell you what, I can tell you where to get it. When you call, I'll call ahead and then I'll have you call so that you're coming to pick up for T. Because I know you tell OG over here that you're picking up for me and you spend your money, whatever it is. But I'm trying to get bigger too.

So since you know so and so, if you'll just help me get an introduction to this guy, I'm trying to do some bigger things, man. And then maybe we can work together at some point. But I can actually protect you and get you what you need if you go buy for me. So he literally was, he was going to buy dope anyway. So he goes and buys dope. But now it looks like I'm sending him to get my dope. So when he's buying birds, I'm not actually able to document that.

Right. And put it in the lab and write a report because he's going to go move it somewhere. But you've ingratiated yourself not only with him, but with whoever's selling him the bird because you're giving him business. Right. Yeah. So at that point, no matter how much he buys, it's T's business. Right.

So now he's out in those same hoods doing his thing with a load of money that he came into and moving it wherever it is, he's moving it. And I'm getting all the credit. Yeah. And that's really what helped me get there because I wasn't a, I didn't have a budget where they were willing to go spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for me to buy all that kind of stuff and buy my way up because it was, again, just like, this is a gang case, man.

We're not going to spend $200,000. Right. Uncle Kane. It's not a cartel case. Right. Yeah. So that made it much easier for me when he was actually out doing a lot of that footwork. And I kept, my reputation kept growing.

You know, people knew who I was and it, you know, turned out to be a really great advantage for me. Okay. So what's the next, what's the next big level? What's the next, like, boss that you met at the kilo level? Well, I'd met I'd met several by then And it was turning them on to him Really the

Trying to think that The timeline is Was really crazy too Because I was I remember So this was right about the same time That I had my guy Buying for me

I was Rolling down the street And this guy pulls up And I happened to be rolling with an informant that was with me that day. I pick him up this corner store every day. And we just kind of roll around and we just trade information and see what he's got, whatever. And this dude pulls up and this Lexus and he's like, hey, man, I've been hearing about you this and that's man. You know, I got some stuff, man.

You're going to love it and everything else. And I'm, I look over with my guy and he's like, yeah, man, probably be all right. I mean, okay. Okay. Again, we're riding around anyway. It's not, he's not trying to sell me a giant load. And so we pull over to his car, his house. house, pull up, and I'm assuming that this jackass sitting next to me knows him well,

but he just knows he's a crib, which is not helpful to me. If you don't know this guy, I don't want to just go in some dude's house. But he trusts me enough to invite him to this house because I'm T. Yeah, the guy that people've heard about. Yeah. So we get in there and the first thing happens, unlock the burglar bar, open the door, step in. It's a typical trap.

You know, you've got a couch, a table with some weights and a gun, and then a big screen TV and like nothing else. Yeah, that's a trap house, baby. So I stand there and no sooner that we start having a conversation about what he had, I hear something eerily familiar. And it just so happens to be my own voice on an episode of cops from 1999. Oh, fuck. So you've got to realize I'm in it.

This isn't the era of, hey, you have 4,000 channels to choose from. This is like, you got four channels to choose from. Plus a UHF. So these fools all watch cops. I mean, in jail, it's all you watch. Yeah. I was thinking, oh my gosh. And this, to this day, it's funny because even when I'm trying to write the book,

I can't even make up what I said. I use the word filibuster because I just crap my pants and started talking. And I must have been maniacical. Yeah, you're like, hey, what happened with that game? Yes. Yeah. And how do you kill the time? I'm like, dude, how long is this episode?

Because the Nationals are on, dude. You should see what's going on with them. It was totally ridiculous. That scared me to death because that I can prepare for me if somebody pulls that draws down or if somebody tries to threaten me or those things you can sort of prep for. This, nothing could have prepared me for this. And I'm sure I act like a panicky wuss. My guy ends up getting something.

I don't even know. It was some nominal amount because it eventually goes to a commercial. And I'm just looking around thinking, this sucker's going to kill me right here. Because, I mean, it's literally, I'm looking at you and I'm looking at you on TV. It's the same, it's a life-sized picture of you. You were a uniform cop in the show. Which is the only thing that saved me because a uniform cop in the show, when you see a dude in uniform. It looks totally different, right?

Yeah. And, of course, I got the cop crop and all that kind of stuff too. You're the 90s look. Now we're in the mid-a-auts. Yeah. And, of course, I, you know, when I'm working on a cover, I'm not like a scrote bag, but I've grown my hair out. I've got a, you know, whatever beard I can grow. This is about six months worth work.

Well, I find, I find bearded cops to be almost hack now. I'm like, all undercovers have beards and long hair. And I feel like now it's come full circle. You got to look cleaner. You know, I'd be a great undercover. Well, I'm six foot six. But like, I'm so, I'm such a doofus and so sloppy. They'd be like, there's no way this guy's a cop.

That's a great way to, I mean, you fit in by standing out. Because you acknowledge. that you're a tall dork. I'm like hiding in plain sight. I'm hiding in plain sight. That's exactly what I did. Right. That's true.

You know? And I'm a nerd too, but I mean, I obviously didn't belong, you know, hanging out with the grips. But got out of there. He did not recognize him. And again, I left. I was even asking my informant like, dude, can you believe that? I didn't even know what was going on.

And he didn't know either. He didn't even notice. None. Nobody had a clue. But I was scared to death. So what happened soon after that, I had a dude that I was linking up with to get into some other. The most difficult part about this whole thing is when I start leapfrogging from people to people because I'm trying to make gang cases, if you're supplying me with stuff and we're working together and all of a sudden I go down the street and I get it from Joe down here, then that's a problem for you because, man, I thought we had this, what's the deal? So I would find every excuse to move on to the next guy, especially when people start showing up late on me or something like that and be like, dude, you know, leave me sitting outside this house.

When you're trying to, you're supposed to meet me, we're supposed to be doing business to say good business. And then I would, you know, screw off and go elsewhere. What I don't understand is like you could just keep doing this. You keep going on and on and on dealer to dealer to dealer. What's the goal? You know, obviously with a cartel case or a high level drug case, the goal is to get the kingpin. Right. what is your goal?

When do you say, okay, this is when I'm going to actually go get the warrant and execute. Well, I knew who I was shooting for is the main thing. Who were you shooting for? My kingpin was the guy doing the $2.50 a week. Okay, yeah. And he was in the neighborhood. So that was my goal. I thought the more connections I make, first of all, I'm building a bigger case,

but I have more people that might be willing to get me to the next guy. Okay, yeah. And who was that guy? How did you know it was him and how did you get to him? Okay, well, I've been, I've been knowing about this guy since I had started running warrants. I mean, I was catching him in houses left and right. He had family out here in L.A. And was definitely kingpin and then, but I had no idea the extent, you know, of the organization or the level in which he was doing business. So I had lists of people when I was working out of patrol cars during the day and then an evening running warrants and, you know, doing informants.

and doing informant buys and stuff. I knew exactly who I had several people targeted. I just had no idea the level that he was at until I started getting into this and realizing, man, this is massive. I kept clawing my way through this. And I was taking, I was taking a risk by moving in and out of people. But if it's a gang case and not a drug case, again, that's what you got to keep in mind here. You frame this as a drug case, then yes, I'm going to stick with this until I have to figure out a way that you can't do this deal.

And you have to go somewhere else. That's what you do. But if I'm trying to eradicate as many gang members as I can from this general area, then I'm still trying to find a reason to move on from him to him. And then I'm having to move up from him and replay that process each time until somebody can get me to the right spot. So the first time I actually ran into that dude was when I was doing a deal with somebody and we were waiting in his driveway and they were having a house party at the

place. And so I pulled up and we're just kind of hanging around in the driveway, a bunch of people out in the yard, a bunch of people in the house and having a party. So my guy goes in to grab the stuff. And then before he comes out, I see this blue Jeep pull up or I was saying it was a Dodge Durango. It pulls up and it's like freaking Prince just pulled up and everybody, you know, worships the rock star. everybody immediately flocked over. He had been laying low for some period of time. Apparently is what I was finding out too, which is why I was having such hard time locating him.

Because he was feeling some, I don't know what the heat was at the time. He pulled up and rolled down the window and I'm like, there's this dude. So everyone was. Did you know it was him because all of these dealers that you were busting kept telling him, telling you that this was the guy? No, I knew he was the guy. How, though? I knew he was the guy from the jump.

of the work that I had done before. Again, I didn't know how much product he was doing. I just know he was the guy. He was the shock caller for that set. Yes, exactly. And what was the set? What was the Cripset? Was it Hoover?

Yeah. That Fortray actually was the primary. And they did have, now, as I scooted out into the other part of there were some five deuce over there too. Right. And they had their own beefs. And when you get to a certain level, you're cross-contaminating a lot of that stuff. Yeah.

And the dope stuff, you are. Right. So I walked over like a, you know, like a sissy girl the same way and thinking, and I recognize him by face. So I don't know him, know him because every other time I've spoken to him, I'm in, you know, black mask with the, you know, keeping through. So I just walked over the guy's high-fiving and talking to him and this and that. And I was standing there as the most obvious dude in this crowd anyway.

And he looked over and just kind of gave me a nod. I gave him a what's up. I didn't know if he'd heard of me or what, but I thought, okay, I've connected some way where he's seen me bound to ask somebody who the hell this guy is. So while I'm finishing that other, I finished that deal off and the fact that I had moved from my other dealer, because he was late, start this guy that I just bought from puts a jacket on me.

And I have an informant that calls me 3 a.m. something. He's like, day, day, man, you're not going to believe this man. You know, you put a jacket on you, blah, blah, blah. What does that mean? Well, so you get a jacket, then you're, labeled as a snitch, not a cop, a snitch, right? So, and that was because he was pissed that I'm buying from him for several weeks. Everything's going fine. And I'll say he shows up late a couple times and I'm off and I'm working with his competitor. Right. So he's just mad. I understand why he's

mad. Yeah. But to me, I'm thinking, well, this could be the worst thing because, again, I don't know that that's why he did it. I don't know who has done it, but they're all talking about, man, you got a jacket put on you. And that's the talk. And immediately, to my head, I go to the cops episode. Right. So that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, I am completely done. This, I'm so screwed.

The next time I went down there, it was the scary, scarier than the first time going back down there to see how everybody was going to, you know, going to take that. So what I actually had to do was once I found out who gave me the jacket and it was this guy again that I just left him. And again, he deserved it anyway. You know, show up on time. You leave somebody hanging.

They'll make me meet you there and sit like a sitting duck. So I just decided to forego my job and said, all right, what would somebody do in the situation? Even if I'm just a drug dealer, what would I do? And what I would do is beat the shit out of him. So that's what I did. So you beat up the motherfucker that was talking shit and calling you a snitch? Yes. How else do I?

I'm thinking, there is no way for me to lift this jacket unless I play this game. Right. And so I got up at 6 a.m. and sat at his house until he should, I know where he stashed his stuff. You know, I've been working with the dude. And it was like one of the little pillars of the porta-cache over his garage on the side. It was kind of a separate little thing. He looked at a piece of concrete. So I know he's going to drop his stuff or pick up his stuff.

And as soon as he did, I just made a B-line. He's like, hey, man, what's up? And then it started to beating the shit out of him. And you just smashed him? Yeah. Did you take his work? No. I didn't, no.

I'm going to steal him from him. You should have taken his product too. Well, what I did was when he got done, so I just punched him a few times and then did a bunch of knees in between the ribs. Yeah. And so this is one of those little houses that sits kind of on a sloped hill. So it's elevated a little bit. And so I had them like in a headlock and throwing knees, you know, Muay Thai style. And it ended up kind of doing this number by his head, throwing them to sliding down the front yard.

And then I walked back up to him. I said, take that jacket off me and then split. Give him a final kick. No. I don't want nobody in the hospital. Right. I'm going to go to hospital, but yeah. So your goal was to fuck him up a little bit, but not actually hurt him to where he would have to.

Yeah, I wanted to hurt him, but I don't need, I don't need the police called. Right. You know what I mean? Right. I mean, again, I'm trying to do what I'm supposed to do. Because local cops, marked cars going through, don't know that you're working this job. No. Only my best pros know.

And they know to keep it shut. You have to go back to the feds that you're working for and be like, hey, I had to No. Pull some police brutality technically. Hey, oh, no. But that's not a case. No, that's just some gangster shit. That's just a personal beef almost.

And that's just a time. But it's in service of the case. Yeah, it is. And it's in service of the greater, bigger picture in this case. And no, I'm not reporting that. And I don't have anything to report for it other than I don't want to turn myself in, you know. I watched a dude kick in a lady's door. and, you know, say, oh, man, T, man, hang on.

I was just, I'm going to go kick that old lady something, something, and take her TV. She was gone, an elderly lady. And I'm sitting there watching this dude kick in her door and take her to walk out with her TV. Just rob an elderly lady? Yeah. So I tried giving him a description, calling it in and, you know, just perplexed the hell out of the cops that are answering. Like, I don't understand. You just witnessed somebody burglarize a house and you're calling me, telling me to,

I'm like, dude, it's a long story. Just this is who you're looking for. Never found that dude. I just ended up replacing her TV. I just ended up dropping a TV to her house. But you can't, you just can't, when you're in this type of situation, I know some people talk about they have to be criminals or they got to, like I said, they got to do a bomb. Yeah. You know, check you for wires.

Whatever. You can check me for wires if you want, but you're not really going to be touching me. Yeah. And the wires at the time in their defense were just like the movies. So I never wore a wire. I only had that open phone line. Right. He'd tape that crap to your chest.

Come on. That is crazy. Okay. When you're, before we move on, everybody that identifies themselves to you that you get close to that you know now is a gang member, do you then go run their file, type in to the official file, hey, this is a gang member. So later when the bus comes, you can rope everybody in. Or how do you tie everybody together?

Is it just your word is good enough? Well, yes. Essentially, yes, it is. But I am doing reports with specific because there's no way I'd remember all that stuff. So yes, I am writing reports, but again, they're not going into the system where anybody can find them. Okay, I get that. Is them saying they're a gang member enough? Or do you actually have to get them doing something illegal for them to be part of the indictment? Well, it kind of depended because some of them just had gang unit was able to identify. They can mark you as a gang member just by doing the stops, you know, for a while. they, when they were doing back in the day with those tats and stuff. Right. They would stop. They would do an F-I sheet. They would essentially stop you when it's, well, obviously you're a gangbanger. They would talk to him about it.

They're not arresting you, blah, blah. They'd take pictures of their tats. Yeah. They'd be filed into a system. Right. And so they would eventually connect all reports, whether he was in a vehicle that was leaving somewhere where they wrote a warrant or something, but he wasn't arrested. And they would put all those little cogs together.

So, yes, there were different manners to, identifying somebody as a... Right. And in your case was the people, everybody that got arrested, were they all in service of doing a crime? Or did any of them just get roped into the dragnet for simply being part of the set?

Does that make sense? Or did all 51 people actually commit a crime that got charged? They all committed a crime. They all committed a crime. But it was, you know, it was a RICO style case. You know, so everybody's roped in for the same weight and whatever, and that's kind of how you leverage getting people to flip. Yeah, of course.

And I know that seems easy to say, like, I would never flip, but all these guys know each other. It's not like in your case where you got some dude that you know is going to find you, but he's got across the country to find you. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about people in your neighborhood. Down the block. Yeah.

And it becomes very difficult not to when you're looking at this could be 30 years or this could be 11 years. Right. And I mean, when you're talking Fed time, it's, I don't need my life, but. Right. I mean, there's, you have to really make a serious consideration. Eventually, everybody would flip. Yeah. So you got, you fucked this guy up. Did you get the jacket off of you? I did. I felt like that cleared the way. Yeah. However, you got stripes. You're like, oh, this white boy went and handled it. Well, yeah. Well, I just did what I was supposed to do. So, um, even before I did it, the one thing I did was go back to my enforcer and, and his high man, the guy got the quarter, the first quarter from. And just. said, hey, man, I know you guys are, you know, in the same set and whatever, but this guy's, you know, trying to put a jacket on me, which they thought was funny. Because, again, they know me. They're like, oh, I don't know you. Are you? You ain't no snitch. Whatever. Yeah. And so my first idea

was not for me to do it, but to tell them that, hey, man, this guy is trying to put a jacket on me. I'm just doing some business. And this guy is, you know, trying to get in front of my game. I know you guys are, you know, you're rocking that stuff. I don't know about that. I don't want to step on your game either, but obviously I got some work to do with this cat. I just want to make sure we're straight. And so my hope was, they'll go take care of his ass and set it straight and make sure I don't have a jacket. But they were like, oh, man, no, you do what you got to do. Yeah. So they, you got to do what you got to do. Yeah. Yeah. So then, then how did that, now this is kind of cleared the way for you to go at the kingpin or the shock collar, we'll call him.

Yeah, somewhat. So eventually we get to a. point where I'm really running out of people. Like, you know, you're getting to a certain level where, man, if this guy's not going to just take me to the promised land, I'm, I'm really stuck. Yeah. And there are times we're sitting in a living room counting while they're counting his money and they're counting a million dollars in the living room floor. Wow. So he's serving the whole area. He's it. Yeah, he's it. I mean, this change the price of a kilo for a better part of a year. when these guys went away because of the source, not because of the guys. Right. So the price went up. Yeah. Because he's gone. Yeah, I went up another five grand

of key for a better part of a year at the time. So, and they're getting it straight from the border. Yeah. He was getting it straight. Which was the craziest thing to find out how he would get it. He would, you know, if he gives this guy $125,000, he gives it to him and watches him drive off. Yeah. And that's how much trust there is. That's bizarre. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't give somebody $20,000. that's a drug dealer and say, you know, you say, I'll be back with it, man, hang on. No. So this guy was thorough.

He was not a stupid gangbanger. He was hands off, but he was also one of the most dedicated gangbanger guys. He had come up through the ranks and grown up in that neighborhood. Was ruthless but smart. Looked very. He was an average. I'd say average looking dude. I mean, just in terms of his build, he was fit and everything.

But he's, you know, five, ten guy. handsome feller. Or any bodies? Did you hear about the talk about any bodies that were linked back to him? Yes. And several. And in what circumstance? Robberies, usually early. And there was one, like the corner store that used to pick up my informant at. That was one of his first ones.

He and one of the other guys in my case went in when they were younger and robbed the store clerk and ended up murdering him. Wow. And then the guy that was my informant ended up being the one they shoved the gun to and told to get rid of it. So he was the one, you know, he was the grunt. Again,

my guy, my informant was literally just a, a dude. And what, what about like drug robberies? Do murders in the service of drug robberies? I imagine that happens.

Yeah, like that's a way to like elevate yourself. Like if you're a young guy that is aspiring to be a high level drug trafficker. Yeah. You can't go get alone. So, you know,

I mean, look, I was involved in stuff like this. Not murders. My God. But like, That's the way to get a bank, to get yourself in the game, is to take somebody's stash. Right.

Well, these guys were doing that, but not amongst themselves. No, you go outside the neighborhood. Right. We had one dude in this case who was actually ripping off my kingpin and his second in command and actually went to his parents' house because he thought he had his stuff in this parents' attic and went and robbed his parents. Wow. That dude got tortured.

That dude was like, I know you've been around the cartoon. type and this was more of a cartel murder. These dudes waited for him to come in, beat the crap out of him, tied him up, hog tied him, and then shoved a gun up his ass and fired. I mean, they did not play. And they dumped his body over and across town. These are black guys? That was the Como, the lake.

So, yeah. Black guys doing this. Wow. But again, this, how do you trace that to the guy except that, duh? I mean, you went to his parents' house. How do we know that he gave the order? Yeah, I tried really hard because the two guys that got pinned with the murder were in the county. And eventually, you know, I was trying to get them to flip.

You know, this is after the case had resolved. And I would go visit them and try to figure out, man, how can I convince you? Because they didn't get paid either because they got arrested and they didn't get paid. They were supposed to get 20K to take care of this. Right. And so I was trying so hard to connect that. But again, I couldn't. I can only do what I can do.

So you never actually ended up solving that murder? Well, it was solved because the two guys that did it got arrested for it. But the guy that called it never got. Okay, I don't want to bury it though, because I want to, you know, this is obviously going to conclude with arrests and convictions. Okay, so this guy is a very successful Crip slash drug trafficker. And that sounds like that's how you become a shock caller of a Crip set or a gang set. is by being the richest.

By being ruthless, but by having the most money. I mean, step out of a gang. I mean, think of the world in general. Of course. Thank you. Do Mexican drug, do you think he was picking up directly from cartel people or from Mexican-American gangs who are connected with cartel people? I don't even know if he was a gang or a cartel.

I just know that he was the Mexican that was getting it across the border. Yeah. So I actually can't tell you one way or the other. Does the DEA ever step in, like after you bust a whole? whole gang squad and this one guy is of serving weight. Did they ever come to you and say, hey, we want to, we want to take this, adopt this into a cartel case? Yeah.

Did they end up doing that? They take some of my smaller peripheral deals there and I don't know that anyone was able to connect because, again, I only had one dude that knew that. And my connection to him was so anticlimactic anyway because he had what they call a four trade day, which is on April 3rd. They have a family picnic in this big park that bordered where the fishbow was and everything. And the U.S. attorney that I've been working with basically drew the line. He said, we have all these characters.

And this is a huge case. I have to prosecute all these things. So we got to cut it off. But I walked at the office, man, both the FBI agent and he were, she was just sitting there like this. I was like, what are you going to tell me? So he wanted to cut it off because we can't do this forever. I probably would have gotten him and then tried to figure out where the Mexican was. And he was just saying, look, we've got 51 people on a docket.

Right. Like, where do we stop? We didn't have 51 at the time. How long did this take? How long is this going on now? 18 months. 18 months. Okay.

And you're still lone wolfing it. You took down all these people. But it's almost the only way you can do this. I'll be honest with you. Right. And I wasn't the lone wolf in the movies, you know, like I said, doing it and, you know, live in the life and whatever. You know, you've heard the crazy things I've done, but it wasn't anything that was going to, you know, put me in jail or something or get me addicted or whatever.

So I'm not trying to claim I was that. But it was literally, it was a different life because I was the only guy. So when somebody calls and says, hey, man, T's coming back from Waco. He's going to be back in two hours. You want to meet up. And I'm, I just get out of bed and say, yeah, I do. And then drive out there. So it was for me mentally, as exactly, exhausted as I was, it was probably time anyway. Yeah. So I asked for a week. I said, look, Fortrade Day is coming up. They're having this big family picnic. Let me go out and try to do my thing.

I'm going to grab my informant. We're going to go out and try to just see because I knew everybody would be there. Right. And he's putting it on. He got a city permit for everything. What is this Kingpin's name? Can you say his name? Yeah, yeah. He, in the book, I call him. Oh, my gosh. What was his street name? Can you say a street name? Yeah, street name is what I was. Well, here's the, here's the big.

problem I ran into with the first book. I used all their real names, but switched characters. Yeah, yeah. Thinking, okay, well, this will show that this is legit. Yeah. And then that caused all kinds of drama because then, you know, people were coming out of the wordwork saying, man, you're saying so-and-so did this. And, you know, I want to know if they get out, I'm not giving them their kids back. And all of that's, I'm like, look, I said in the beginning of the book that I've switched names, but I used real names because I don't have to be creative for that. These are the names as guys had, you know. Okay, so you can't remember his street name even. Well, I remember it. What's his street? I just want to give some so people can follow along. Like, what was, can you give us the name?

I'm disappointed. I can't remember what I changed it to in the second book because I changed it again to it was, this is embarrassing. But you can't even remember his actual street. Well, I remember his actual street name. Can you say it? Well, I'd rather not say it because, again, I still live in that city. All right.

And so everybody, the drama that causes there when people are finally identified in specificity, it makes a big problem. problem for me. Okay. So what was your interaction with him? So my interaction with him finally was where there was a pickup game of basketball and he's out on the court. And so my informant's calling me like, man, because there's a set, there's like the park. It's hard to describe. There's a giant city park where everybody's out barbecue and parked all on the sides, every which way. And then there's a dead end out of the fishbowl and you walk across the dead end. There's an apartment complex, basketball court.

So a bunch of people from all, you know, all this catch from that part. All the four trade guys were out playing ball. They get done playing ball. And then I pull up and I was going to try to meet him in front. They had an apartment I knew where one of the,

his sidekick at the time had an apartment there. But again, it's like not where he stays. It's just one of his spots, you know. And so it was crazy. I had a bunch of people. I pulled in a bunch of people coming over to my car and everything else. And I'm trying to whisper to my informer like,

man, we got to try to make something happen. This is a Hail Mary. This guy doesn't touch dope, essentially. He handles the money and then he's got people that touch it and move it. I said, so if we have any shot, we've got to figure out a way from me. I'm just going to ask him if he's got anything. And my informant, for the first time, I had something intelligent to say.

And he was like, man, you will screw it up because of who you are. He said, think about this. He said, you really need me to do this. And again, my ego's saying, no, man, I got this because I want this hand to hand. And he's talking sense that makes sense because he's just a dude. You know, he's a dude I've helped out before, but he's just a scrote. What's your guys? Is it, hey, look, this guy has been buying here for 18 months.

He's moving weight. You know, he can get rid of it fast. He needs a better price. Is that why he needs to meet the guy? It's because he needs. Well, we didn't even have cash at the time. We were told to wrap this up. So we had, this was the last ditch effort was to see if they had anything at all.

And this was the craziest part because it really makes no sense. And you'll know why this makes no sense. So I let my ego go and I was like, you're right because, you know, I'm not sitting here with 20K. We're not trying to do that kind of thing. We're at a, we're at a freaking four tray picnic. Yeah. And so he goes up and says, hey, man, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, T's trying to help me out.

moment. And in celebration of the day, everybody's just in a mood. Everybody's commuting and hanging out, eating and drinking 40s. Drinking a ton. And this is nightfall too. So this is like it's nighttime. And I'm literally just parked. I'm essentially illuminating them with my headlights as I, you know, it was pulled up and they were talking. And he got the dude to freaking score him a gram of crack cocaine. The kingpin. The kingpin. Because he was drunk and he was married. He just decided to do something so stupid. My guy just looks the part. He's just a dude. He's, you know, and nothing harmless. But if I had gone up and asked and said,

I could spare a couple hundred, he would have just thought, what the hell? For me to ask, wouldn't have made any sense because by then everybody knows who I am. I certainly know who he is, but I know, you know, my name had gotten around.

So that was essentially a way to draw him into the case. And that's enough? One gram of crack. So it's enough to, it's enough to associate him, because he's, again, this is, we're making a dope case. If the conspiracy is that he doesn't end up getting, you know, this massive weight, it remains to be seen because then during the roundup, you know,

he had 200, coordinate 200 law enforcement people to go out. You had 51 people. So is that the most you got on him? That's the most I got on him. Yes. Okay. So was your thought, well, okay, maybe we'll make the bust, we'll rope him into the conspiracy, but we'll try to get a bunch of people to flip and identify him as the man.

Yes. Okay. That is how it works. God, I should have been a fucking lawyer. And we got the raids because, you know, if you go and raid his house, whatever you find. So I found stuff on his computer that found a little bit of weight, they found a little bit of cash. Okay, hang on. So back up, because this is now we've, we're 18 months.

You finally got at least a little something on the kingpin or the alleged kingpin. He's at least a part of the. So you go back to the feds and say, okay, now it's time. How do they coordinate, you know, a 50. one man bust. Man. How long does it take and how many people are involved? So it took a couple of weeks and we sat up overnight, like for two or three different

nights, the night leading up to the actual bus, we were there almost no sleep, essentially, writing warrants for specific locations where we thought the people were, you forgot who's where, and, you know, the Fed paperwork is lengthy. So we're up at the U.S. Attorney's Office just doing paper. paperwork out the ass. Yeah. Like here's this address. This is where this individual is who we're looking for. This is what we're looking for. I mean, you got to, you know, do a proper warrant. It's their wanted, the person is wanted, but we also want to include any, you know, drugs, gang associated paraphernalia, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff.

Get all that stuff signed off on. And then essentially set up, we set up in a gymnasium of a high school with 200 plus law enforcement. That's our, you know, Fort Worth SWAT and gang units and all that stuff, guys that, guys from DEA, guys from the U.S. Marshal's office, guys from other agencies that worked with task forces. Yeah. Just hacked it full. Right. They just, you know, they're putting up on. And for me, this is new to me. Right. So this part of it, it was freaking weird that it was ending. I was already in a weird mental space. Right. How did that feel? It's almost like you're completing, like, this, a book. It was, right? It was the end of a journey. Yeah. It was sad? Yes. I was sad. I was sad and relieved and nervous because they were about to find out.

Yeah. Did you feel bad? Were any of the guys, I mean, you must have, right? Because you spoke on their behalf. No question. Like, were there any of them where you're like, I feel bad that they're going to go away? Absolutely. I absolutely did. Which is why for those people I offered to testify on their behalf in terms of their character and their potential to do right, whatever. I knew how they actually. Did you go apologize to the guy you beat up? And you were like, hey, man, you were actually right. I was a fucking snitch. I didn't get to meet. How profound you were.

Knock some sense. No, it didn't actually get to meet all of them because many of them were just like, you know, birds. You know, no, I'm not talking to nobody. Right. Other ones were like sitting across the table. It would be me and the FBI agent and they'd be sitting here. And she'd be accusing him, man, I know you're connected with so-and-so. You get it all from blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. And be like, no, man, that's not how it works, man. Tell her, T. That's not how it works. Come on, T. You know, it's just not, not computing yet. Right. And I'm like, dude, I'm on the other side of the table, man.

Like, just tell her. Tell her. I'll help you if you'll tell her. Yeah. And it's, I know it's a predicament to put somebody in, but it's really the only way to, you know, to eradicate it all. So is everybody, everyone's setting up in the gym, so they're wearing SWAT gear? Yeah. This was the meeting before.

And then we set up for that next day. We're going to run everything in coordination at 6 a.m. So we go up to this FBI office, and I feel like really out of sorts there because, again, I'm used to running those papers. I get to gear up and go do my work, but I'm helping coordinate this stuff. So this is old school, man. This is just like, it reminds me of the stock market floor. So everything's all quiet. We've got this long table with a bunch of red phones on it all around these other places where guys are going to be calling in from specific locations and reporting if they have people, et cetera.

So you're not going out. I'm not going out. I'm staying in this room with all these agents, these federal agents. And, you know, they're like green light, give the green light on the radio. And then within, you know, a few minutes, you start hearing people calling in and reports over the radio and everything. And they got all these dry erase boards. And they're putting X's over mug shots. And they're saying, you know, six guns and blah, blah, and so-and-so's running. And they think so-and-so's at this place. It was like the stockroom floor. It was insane for me. It was a surreal experience just watching this old school phones go to work. That's pretty amazing. It was really fascinating. Because again, that's the only time I've ever worked with the feds was those, whatever, it wasn't even the full 18 months because I'd only done six, seven months of that, you know, was done in the-

So did you get everybody that was in the indictment? Did you arrest everybody that day? Or did anybody, okay. We got 27 the first day. Oh, wow. So did people flee or they just weren't in the spots you thought they were? Once you heard, if you were a part of this, and once you heard, he was a cop and they did this big round.

up and they've got a bunch, man, it became very difficult. That was a super difficult transition period for me because now I'm just hanging out there. And these, there's however many more people and other, you know, almost 20, some, almost 25 people out there that know who I am now. Yeah. Right. And so it was super stressful. So did you have to, is that when your wife and kid were sleeping in the car with you and not, you were letting go home? That's when it started. That's when it started, man. The threats, most of the threats came when guys had been in jail and denied a bail. Yeah. And realized that the time was significant.

Why were they denied bail? Because they had sheets or they were on probation. Gangs, man. Yeah. Oh, so if you have a gang profile, you can be denied bail for that. Yeah. And there's each of those folks, we had to actually testify. I say we, but the FBI agent actually did the testimony for their being held without bond.

Oh, okay. Gotcha. And in each case, you have to pull up individuals specific reasons why they can I get out because it's not just a, you know, we get nobody gets bail. Right. So everybody gets their individual opportunity. Oh, I see. Okay. And so we did. We had to pull all those elements of the crime they did or or connect them to gangs and all that kind of different stuff. Yeah, their paperwork, their sheet. And since it was a conspiracy, I think it was probably easier since they knew everyone was associated in one way or the other. Once you start really painting that picture, it's easier to rely on the fact that, well, all these folks don't have bonds. And this is why this person's attached to this group. And so probably most people didn't get

bailed out. So a lot of people getting arrested and then, you know, thinking they're going to go to walk through with their money and then they don't. And then they sit and then they realize, wow, we're looking at 35 years. Then it kind of turns into a bigger deal. And then we had all kinds of drama in the jail with threats amongst one another. Yeah. Yeah. Did, okay, back to the rate itself, did you get the kingpin the first day? We did. Okay. Where was he at? He was at his house where we expected him to be. Gotcha. But he was probably clean though, right? He had, a little bit of stuff. He had a couple of weapons that were in the house, of course, and it had a little bit of a weight, but it wasn't like anything significant. Again, it wasn't,

you know, where you keep your stuff. Right. But the guns are still illegal, though, I'm sure. So that's still enough to, now you've got another charge. Computer, there was stuff on his computer that was gang affiliated writings and stuff like that. So all that stuff was used as evidence. And then how long did it take to arrest the rest of the people that weren't there day of the rain? That's a good question, but I want to say, man, at least... at least three weeks to a month. So, I mean, because, you know, the people that kind of knew were easier to find. And then whose job is it?

Is it the U.S. Marshals or whose job is it? Primarily. People that have warrants out, active warrants, the people are. Primarily. Okay. However, since they had active wanted warrants, we leveraged our own department and stuff for that stuff, too. So who, I mean, you know, you have an active warrant. How do you find somebody that's got a warrant out?

You go to their parents' house. You just look up all the info you can and then just start trying to get people to tell you. Yeah, and you're tracing numbers. I mean, U.S. Marshals have really great resources. Okay, because they're federal, so they can ping cell phones if you have a... You can write a warrant to do that, and then it takes no time to do it. Getting the warrant is the difficult part. When you're working with a NARC unit in a municipality, you write that paper and it takes 30 days to get a phone company to get some of the stuff.

To get actually a wire up on the phone. And we start getting people talking about murder cases and stuff like. that, it becomes a whole lot easier to be able to justify getting some of these guys pinged. But again, it's just going out and doing grunt work. You're just going to knocking on doors and talking to people. There are neighbors of neighbors. Yeah, and I'm sure a lot of people from the neighborhood were willing to cooperate. Yes.

I mean, a lot of people claim not, I'll tell you, a lot of guys that shut up, I was the most disappointed in because really the key people ended up talking. Okay. So you get everybody in there. When do you start sitting down? Right away. With people. So were you part of that?

Yes. So you were sitting down when they were willing to sit down. Some of them again were like, I'm not meeting with nobody. You talk to my attorney. I'm not saying nothing. And you say, well, we're presenting this case, man. You could get a downward departure,

but you're looking at like based on your criminal history and you're this and this. You're looking at 28 years. You know, usually stuff like that, you're thinking, man, this guy's bound to at least have a conversation. And there were some people who said, fuck off. Man, there were. It just unbelievable to me. Some of the

guys that I really wanted to give a break, too, ended up riding out their full sentences. Okay, so the charges are racketeering. Yeah, it's mostly... Is it a RICO charge? Yeah, mostly it's possession, and it's based on the weights that we get from different people

that are testifying that this is where I got it. This is how often I got it. This is how I got it. this is, you know, this is where they got it and you just follow that lead. It's almost like a paper investigation at that point. Yeah. And again, this is my first one of those too. So it's dope dealing. It's crack distribution, cocaine distribution, weapons, illegal weapons possession.

Yep. It's almost any other charges. That's almost it. But then other than the bodies, though. Well, the bodies, again, that's when it started coming over where you could turn over this information to, you know, homicide detectives. I say, man, you got a cold case here. This guy is actually wanting to say who did it and how they did it.

Okay. So did some of those people that got roped up into the federal indictment get charged with state murder cases? Yes. We got one that was doing a lifer for killing a 14-year-old. And I'll tell you some of them I'm really disappointed in because some of the homicide detectives, we got some great ones. We got some not-so-great ones. And I'm learning more and more. I had a guest on my show even that did 13 years for a murder he didn't commit and only got out by the grace of God because he didn't have a DNA evidence, but had the dude found the dude that did it.

It's the only way he even ended up to get it out. And I find out that there are so many not just lazy detectives, but crooked detectives, it was difficult for me to get somebody to go chase that stuff down. We had at the time one single cold case dude and a lot of departments have none. Wow. I mean, a lot of departments are just overwhelmed. If you had a big city, you're working murders. This is what you work. You don't have time to sit down and pull old cases because you're constantly working your own.

So, and it's very disappointing. Let's see how few got really worked. But, okay, this is what's, this is interesting. If you are a, if you're arrested as part of a gang indictment federally, but there's evidence that you were part of a murder that comes up, will the feds give that murder case over to the state and say, okay, you're no longer getting charged usually with a federal crime? So you'll actually go to state prison even though you were originally charged with a federal crime? It depends. You're asking me complicated questions

of the feds, which I was only one for eight months. So, yeah, or 12 months. Sorry. I mean, they can do whatever they want to. They can. Again, that's, I think the feds mostly will take, they're not going to take a murder because it's a murder. They usually will send that to the state level because they know to get prosecuted. They have the resources and stuff like that. Again, you're talking about FBI has, what, 1,200 agents or something, you know, for the whole U.S.

So it's not like they have... FBI only has 1,200 agents? Yeah, don't hold me to that number. Will you Google that? How many? It's not many as many as you would think. But they have tons of courthouses and tons of bureaucracy and tons of...

Yeah, but every federal agency leverages those. Right. I'm just talking about FBI specific. I mean, DEA is quite a bit bigger than that. But again, when you look at United Stateswide, I mean, it's not a ton of people. So they don't have resources to take on a murder case. In other words, they'll pass that to the state level. Right.

Probably get prosecuted unless they can tie it into that conspiracy in this case, it wouldn't have made sense. Okay. Interesting. Fascinating. So that ended up happening, it sounds like, with some individuals in this case. They got investigated. I only know of one that actually ended up doing a life plus 40. and then the rest of them, I'm not sure, ever really panned out.

So what were overall, what were, I know it's 51 people, but what were like most of the sentences in general? I was the average sentence. We had a vast majority were around, the vast majority between 16 and 30 years. Holy shit. Yeah. The ones that got out really early were ones that I testified as to their character

and potential to make themselves useful in society. Wow. And how many people were the, did you testify for? I tested, well, all of them. All of them got out. Four, though. Four people, yeah. All of them got out early. Okay, got you. Only four people. Okay. Oh, because look, I'm only willing to do it for certain people in the first place. And then on top of that, and I can't blame them, I'm in my own head thinking, dude, I got you on this, but I got to put myself in their shoes, too. Like, yeah, but I knowing you for a year. And now you're telling me this, but you're saying, trust me.

I mean, that's a leap. So I really, I mean, again, it was, it was emotional because I was like, man, I swear I'll do it. You know, I did it for, I did for this person. I do it for this. And it's, it's just, I understand how difficult it would be to say, I'm really not the typical guy you think I am. Yeah. Although you don't know me at all, apparently, because, you know, I just outed myself. Did everybody take a plea deal or did any, any of them choose to take it to trial?

We had seven trials and nobody won the trials. Again, it was, they were, they're all hand to hands. So I know it's like saying you, if you have a single person witness that saw something tragic or whatever, it's difficult to say they're going to identify you. I've spent time with these people. I mean, isn't they're playing madden, sharing 40s half the time? And so I knew exactly who they were. And they knew that I'd done the deal and nobody was really denying that. So you were there in court testifying, yes, I bought drugs from this person, the defendant.

I say on this date, this is why I drove in, did this, this, this. And that was enough? Or were there, was there other evidence against? That was enough. I mean, again, I didn't wear wires. I didn't have a team full of people that were listening in on the deals. I had cameras. And at one point, I got a range over full of cameras that didn't work.

I have one video I think of, I mean, I can tell you how many TV shows call about this case. And they end up just passing because I have nothing that they can use for all their beef. footage. Yeah, right, right. Because there's no real footage of all that kind of stuff. And I wouldn't have been able to, I wouldn't have gone half this far with proper equipment. I had one thing that was a recorder. This is just when technology was transitioning into something that's reliable. I had one little recorder that I had and it looked kind of like a phone and it was, I mean, it was a little square, looked like maybe like a pager-sized thing that was a recorder. And it ran out of room during one of the deals, it starts beeping on me.

Yeah, we put a lot of trust into law enforcement. Because, you know, you're an honest guy. I can tell after sitting down with you, you're, you know, but just your word is enough to convict a person and what's supposed to be a democratic society. I would agree with you more now than I even would have before, only because I see more how, I don't necessarily talking about undercover specific, but. It's hard to find really good cops these days. There are really good ones, but it's going to get worse before it gets better because

cops are scared to go do kick-ass work anymore. Is it because they have tighter control? Some of it's tighter control. There's a lack of appreciation. I mean, even in the DEA, they were telling them we don't want to do these no-knock warrants as often. We're going to do this and this and this. We want to pass that down to the other guys to do no-knocks and where you're knocking,

And if they don't answer, I mean, a knock and ask warrant, can we come in? And we have a warrant. If you answer the door, we'll come in. But there's no more of that fast action stuff. I wouldn't say no more, but a lot less. Because, again, the liability and everything that happens that comes along with all that stuff, you know, people can bring up a racially charged issue just out of hitting these houses that I was hitting. Again, and I was not motivated by race.

No. That's where I worked before. I knew of the problem. And then when I graduated and started working under car, it was something that was passionate about because that's what I knew. Yeah. And I did, you know, I did some white dude cases and stuff too, but I just wasn't as familiar with those times.

So, so everybody does time. How many people cooperated out of the 51 people? And did they get time cuts? Yes. Because of it? Yes. With an exception of a few people. I'm going to try to do this without using names because this still pisses me off to this day.

But so a couple of people had started to share information. which was typical because everybody's trying to give you as much as they feel as comfortable, and then you have to kind of push for more if you need specifics or whatever. And then there was one of the higher up guys, not the kingpin, but one of the higher up guys, which is, again, a big gangbanger guy, starts threatening a couple of them with, man, I need you to recant what you said. I need you to write a letter to the judge that recants any information that you gave. And they're trying to ignore it, and he's getting angry.

This is while they're locked up in like temporary lockup because it's, you know, right after the roundup. And so finally, he cons a guard into taking a note and walking it over to one of these guys and it's his brother's address. And he just passes it to him, say, hey, man, this is from so-and-so. Which, again, he knows he's trying to get him to write this recantation letter.

So, of course, and this is, I only know this now after the fact, but at the time we didn't know this was happening, right? So all of a sudden we got a guy that's helping us out And then all of a sudden it shows up that he writes a recantation letter. A few of these people write letters to the judge at the same time. And we're just screwed. He read a letter to the judge. That means like, hey, I made that confession under arrest, under duress.

No, they just said, I was just lying on them. Yeah, I just lied on everything. And you said to the judge, the judge is not going to be able to take what you say anymore. I mean, you just, you've done undid it. If they sent it to us, we could talk to them and try to say, okay, what's going on here? And he's like, well, my family's being threatened and everything else. Yeah. Those families being threatened.

He writes a recantation letter, gets hammered. And these guys are doing longer sentences than anybody else because they got hammered, which was already unjust because they had already started sharing what little information we could get from them. And then the guy that threatened them all shared everything and got out early. Holy fuck, dude. That is cold game. So you're talking about the new laws where you're trying to get, you know, people compassionate release. So I'm working with some attorneys now to try to get some of these guys out, which is ironic too. Did what happened?

What happened with the kingpin, our guy whose name we will not speak? He's out. He's out? He's out. The kingpin's out? He had originally a 25 year and then got some kind of, you know, when Obama did the crack weights comparison, which I actually understand. Because you talk about a racially fucked up law. Yeah.

That's one of the last. laws that in America, that's actually kind of like obviously racist. Yeah. You know, there's really no more overtly discriminatory. No. Racial laws on the books anymore. Yeah. That was one of the last ones.

I totally agree. The 100 to one crack to powder. Totally agree. It makes no sense either. So it's easier to make a lot more weight when you're weighing it. Yeah. So hang on. So did he take it to trial?

He did not go to trial. He did not go to trial. And he was charged. This was years later. Okay. Was he charged? as the kingpin in the roundup? He was charged at the kingpin,

but everybody in this case essentially got the same weight if they were connected to the weight. So they connected all this weight to him. What was the weight? There wasn't like a number because everybody has a different connection. So if I'm going through and buy in from five guys that we can verify we're supplied by you, that all six people now have that weight.

If you said, you know, if you were able to figure out that every month, you know, you bought up a bird and it went to these five guys and they did it for a month for the past year, then that's what you're getting charged with. So you're getting charged with a year's worth of work. A lot. And in some of these cases, they don't sell drugs, kids. Well, don't. I mean, the feds play by different rules.

Yeah. Again, the crack thing helped that disparity in that law, which again was used to an advantage in this particular case, but not racially motivated. Were people willing to testify against? the kingpin that he was the guy? We didn't have people testify against him. Wow. Now, we had people talk on him and put it together, but he didn't go to trial. That's what I mean, were people willing to, if he had gone to trial, were there people willing

to get on the stand and say he was the shock caller? They said they were. Yeah. You know how that goes. You never know, though. Yeah. When it comes to actual time to do that, you know, a lot of people just can't do it. Oh, interesting.

So it sounds like this guy, I don't know if you would have beat it. He might have. I don't think he would. to beat it. I mean, he had the weight anyway. And he had guns on him when you raided his house. Yeah. I mean. So what was he, what was his sentence? I think he got 25. He got 25. Yeah. Which if he had served out 25, he'd still be in. Yeah, you'd do about 22 off of that unless you catch time. Right. And in the feds, you're pretty much doing year for year. I mean, there are certain instances we can get out earlier. But again, he got that drop just because of the general charge. A lot of those people got

lawyers that help them get reductions because of the weight. Because again, my whole thing that pissed me off was I thought it was a success because it's a gang case to me. Yeah. I don't care how much weight it is. If it means you're gone for a while, great. Knowing what I know, hey man, this dude does have bodies on him, but he's not serving time for those, but now he is, then to me I can justify that.

Right. Yeah. But I also wouldn't be the one to balk when somebody says, well, you know, this is crack versus powder and all this different stuff. And so I get that. I get that. So this case was in what year? The trial started in 2008 and 2007 and into 2008.

I started in the case in 2005. Okay, gotcha. Wow, it's an odyssey. That is an odyssey. How did it change your life? You started, you get these death threats. Do you move? Do you?

No, we didn't move. I mean, I spent the better part of a year and a half doing some really kick-ass heat runs. And every time I'd leave. What's a heat run? A heat run is if you're running dope of any kind and you leave the spot, then a lot of times you'll hang a left and then hang a left and then hang a left and then hang a left. If somebody's following you back to your house, then you kind of know that you're in a bad situation, right? So you're pitching the stuff or making a move or whatever.

And I would essentially do that. I would make wide little heat runs to make sure that I went home this way. Because again, the disadvantage of working in your own city, Yeah. My wife and I would be walking in the mall and we had just agreement that if I saw somebody, I'd say, man, and there's, there's chump over there and then we would just kind of split. Like, we were walking with each other, but we would just kind of fade kind of off this way to where it didn't look like I was with anybody. I would say, man, what's up?

We can greet him that way. But, you know, we had, it was the weirdest thing working in your own turf. Yeah. And was this thing on the news? And it's a huge case. Oh, yeah. And were you identified in the news as the undercover? Not at first.

I mean, not at first. Because, again, I was undercover. It's a thankless kind of job, honestly. But the FBI and the Fort Worth gang unit and everybody's doing all the press conferences, again, it's fine. I'm not, didn't do it for credit. And it almost rather not have credit for that anyway. I just, you know, it's just, how did it change your career? Did you get a promotion?

Did you? Now, that seems so New York. But it doesn't work that way. You promote, when you promote, you got to still take a test and beat everybody else and whatever. So it really, you know, it was. some notoriety maybe, but honestly, it really didn't. I tried to start another case like that because I now had the leverage and the internal knowledge, the workings of how the feds work, and the things that I knew after two years

that if I could go back and change, I thought, man, well, let's put together a team. I could have a small team of people that I really do trust and we can do this all again. But you couldn't be on the streets anymore, could you? At least not on the east side. Well, again, I hadn't been outed yet. So I was trying this. You know, the media didn't know, and these guys were locked up. So I was doing Mexican Mafia shipments that were coming in through the free port outside of Houston and trying to, they were moving dope and guns through that port and coming up straight through up 35 and a four.

So I started a case that way. And it just got so finger-screwed the whole way that. I want to talk about that on the Patreon. That sounds fascinating in Mexican Mafia. And the connection from prison to the street dealing is really interesting. Yeah. But, I mean, you weren't a cop for very long, 13 years. I wasn't.

I just, I think I was- When did you quit the forest? When did you leave? I think I was just so burnt out after that. I mean, it took everything out of me. Right. And I, the only thing that I thought I was really, really, really good at by that time was doing that. And my wife is already so patient.

I mean, she had a real job and she couldn't go to sleep. Yeah. And so I'd come home at 4 in the morning. She was sitting on the living room with the, you know, the TV on, waiting for me to get home so she can go to bed and then get up and be a work at eight. And I'm like, we can't do this forever. So, and then when that other thing, you know, started falling apart, I thought, man, she made me actually stay to make sure I didn't want to, like, promote and do a righteous police career.

Yeah. But I'm also, you know, I'm kind of myopic when I get into stuff, which is why I'm doing the stuff I'm doing now. I just, I get into something and I dive and everything else disappears and I just get into it. Yeah. And then when I just was burnt out on it, I just was ready to do something else. So I just jumped off into entrepreneurs. and you know, started the company. And then he started your company.

And that's what made me just do it. I was just so fried. Yeah. I was a worker, you know, if other guys are disappearing for two-hour lunches, I'm working. So I just thought, man, if I'm burnt on this, I don't want to stay. Yeah, it sucks to be a cop, man. Really, it sounds even worse than being a drug dealer. I wouldn't want to be one today.

I mean, people always ask if I miss it, even, you know, right away after I left, you miss it. I'm like, actually, I don't. it's like, you know, the remembering your first girlfriend. You know, you can't remember just those good times. This is a reason why it was your first and not your last. Yeah, yeah. So I know all the drama and the politics and the red tape and the difficulty

and the long reports and staying over and there's a lot to it. And so I just, I was smoked. Well, I guess this will be the last question. And we'll plug your book and your channel. What happened to the neighborhood? What happened to the fishbow? Yeah. So I went back maybe a year later, I was at the gang unit.

And I went over in a little Ford Fiesta and went in and drove through the neighborhood to try to just see. I was going to try to see if I could talk to anyone. Because again, some of the families were related still there. Most of the people were out. They had newer little, like I said, they made a little flower bed. Somebody bought up the properties. Somebody scrapped to where it was vacant lot instead of a vacant of a lot with a burnt-up house. or one that's a bullet holes in the side.

It was cleaned up and Hispanic families were moving in there. That's great for a neighborhood. Almost none were in there at the beginning. Yeah. So it was diversified. Somebody else owned them and was fixing up the houses. And some of the guys hadn't heard about it. You know, again, you're talking to a Hispanic family that just moved in there.

Yeah. And so, you know, just here asking people about that fishbowl operation that happened and how the neighborhood's doing everything. I was like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about. They didn't know. Yeah. Which is the greatest reward ever. Yeah.

I won't say that it's perfect. I mean, there's still crime down there. And these guys are getting out. Some of them are going back down there. Yeah. I can't tell you the number of people I've just done drive-throughs to, you know, to show them where it was and ask questions.

And I'll have somebody on a corner stand up and, you know, signal to the lookout or wherever it's time to go. That's tea. That's tea. I'm not sitting here. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's fascinating to see the growth. and the other part of town where it stretched outside the fish bowl also is fantastic because the university there has expanded and a bunch of people have bought up the properties.

You've got to figure California migration has helped the real estate value. That improves the property. But Californians have always bought property in Texas. It's a lot more economical to buy in Texas. Totally. But it's been fixed up quite a bit. There are still areas where, you know, it's just, I'd say the improved areas have have encroached on the lower areas.

Yeah. So they made them smaller. It's similar to the hood over here. Yeah. And you get over closer to the Compton area. There's a lot of, you know, nicer places that are being put up, new apartments and coffee shops and whatever, different than it was 25, 30 years ago. Yeah.

So you feel like you did your duty. You did a good thing overall. Look, it didn't solve everything. And again, I'll be the first to admit this is a cog. this is like somebody convincing you to go kicking a door and rescue a human trafficking victim. Well, that's great. You rescued them. Yeah.

And then what? Yeah. So it doesn't, that doesn't solve the problem. That helps solve the problem. But you have to have a counseling process and a place for them to be and, you know, the right people to take care of them and nurture them until they can get. And the same thing happens here.

So once we figured out afterward, you know, the people kept trying to get me to write a book. And I was like, I didn't write a book. like write a book for what? That's a lot of work. And then once we found out there was 104 kids, you know, through all these interviews, there's guys in there talking about,

you know, I have four kids and, you know, they're all within a year and they don't remember the middle name of this one, but it's, I mean, it's just, it was bizarre.

And I thought, man, so that's when we realized, man, the book could, maybe we could leverage the book to, um, to help the kids because that's essentially the other part of the equation.

There's probably three parts. You've got to have the arrest that's in the middle of the people that need to salvage the neighborhood so that poor people have a chance to get out. And then obviously there's the prison mentorship and the prison programs and making sure that it isn't a ridiculous torture. But the most important part is the kids in the beginning. If you mentor kids who have incarcerated parents or murdered parents, which are the programs we donate all the book profits from, then you essentially are weaning them.

We were talking about programs that teach them how to write checks, keep them table manners, teach them how to wear a tie so they can go to job interviews, and, you know, as well as just learning how to be a man of the house. You know, and there isn't a man in the house there, and they counsel their mothers and stuff like that. These programs are fantastic. That's awesome. And that's what's going to keep this from being a cyclical thing.

And that's why I feel good about, look, this neighborhood got cleaned, and then we wrote a book and started leveraging the money from that book and drawing attention at least to that very neighborhood, you know, those kids that we're coming up now have a program there that we're trying to help fund. So they have opportunities to not become gangbangers and keep the cycle. Yeah, that's great. Well, I'll definitely buy a book. I'd love to support. Plug it, plug away.

Where can they get it and find you? Now you can get it on Amazon because all the book distributors, you know, several of them gone out of business. So no more Barnes & Noble for me, but it's hard to find those anyway. So it's called Life in the Fish Bowl. And you can find that on Amazon. Again, all of the profits will go right back to the neighborhood for the kids. Awesome. And then the channel is Uncommon Souls.

And it is on YouTube. It's on all the other podcasting channels and stuff also. But that's the primary one there. Again, it's just drawing attention to the fact that so many of us have more in common than we can appreciate. And I leverage the experience that I had here in the fishbowl thinking, yes, I thought I was Mr. get along with all races and stuff because I was a musician and biracial bands and everything else and I thought I could really get along

but everybody the consensus is everybody you know he's a you know criminals that are killers right? Oh I thought you're going to say cops I was like yeah or cops or cops now that too but yeah and it's but what's fascinating it's fascinating that these guys were

if you take the sociopath and remove that part from them and the fact that they were gang banging and you know participating in violent acts they were like dudes. Yeah. I mean, like said, you played mad. You talk crap about the Cowboys.

Whatever. I mean, we just enjoyed doing dude stuff. Yeah. So it was a very eye-opening experience. And I have, you know, people from all walks with very fascinating stories, similar to your story, which I think is fascinating, that you can tie into other people from completely different walks. You would say, wait a minute, you have something in common with that dude.

Where normally you would just be dismissive of who they are. So, you know, hopefully you can always look forward to seeing somebody that you would normally dismissed and think, I'm going to find a nugget in this. Yeah, we have much more in common, much more in common that we do differences. So definitely go check out Tegan's book, check out his channel, follow him on socials, and then switch over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show. She wanted to talk a little bit, you know, more cop stuff. I mean, that was a fascinating episode. Thank you so much for coming down, brother. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, man. Love it. All right, guys. Take care.