The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1169: Modern Policing's Origins and Issues - Part 3 - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

62 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas and Pete conclude a brief series about the history of modern police and the reasons it is out of date in the twenty-first century. The final episode covers the work of Joseph Wambaugh.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two, even three a day. And yeah, can't do it without you. So thank you for the support. Head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support and do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana show. Thomas, let's finish out this police series. What do you want to talk about today?

I think Joseph Wamba is on the menu. Yeah, I marked out Joseph Wamba for a dedicated episode. Because I think he's important. I, he's still alive, I think. He's got to be very elderly now. He's got to be around 90. He was very much a documentary in though of the period in which we're talking about. When it was in, when police, modern policing was ever,

Russian transition. And when arguably it was at kind of a zenith in terms of, you know, it's administrative clout. And it's, it being respected kind of as an essential institution of government. And Wamba was an East Coast guy. He came from Pittsburgh. He was German-Irish, and his dad was a policeman out there. But Wamba, he joined LAPD when he got out of the Marine Corps as a young guy. And I think he was a German-Irish. And he was a German-Irish. And I think he was a he served about 14 years as a police, you know, from 1960 until the mid-70s. But for context, like, a lot of dudes would travel, they'd relocate to L.A. to join LAPD. LAPD was like the top of policing.

And one of the things that was peculiar about 1991 in the Rodney King situation, like, it wasn't peculiar that that happened. It wasn't peculiar, unfortunately, that it jumped off into this race war. but a lot of people don't understand that unlike Chicago especially, but also like unlike, I mean, our police department, we got like a thug police department. You know, like, we really do. I grudgingly like Chicago Feedy for reasons. I've got, like, a complicated relationship with them.

But they never had, they always had, like, a dirty fucking reputation. And New York, you know, they always had a reputation as being, like, corrupted by, like, warred bossism and, like, mafia politics. and stuff. But like LA, it was considered to be this like impeccable, impeccably professional police force. And they had a rep for like not being quote unquote racist. And like they actually had a rep for, you know, being, you know, very progressive according to the relevant metrics. I don't like that term, but, you know, just people understand what I mean, I'm sure. So the, the fact that this like kind of took a nose dive in the early 90s is, is interesting.

You know, but that's, Wamba started writing when he was a cop. And his first, his first book was the new Centurians, which is very much kind of like a pro, it's almost like the top gun of like the police department. You know, it's about like hero cops doing this crazy stuff. Like a lot of, and the centerpiece is kind of the watch riots. And then he wrote the Blue Knight, which is very much in that vein. But then like when he, when he realized he could get paid as an author and his books were actually moving. at volume, you know, he retired early from the police department to write. And then he wrote the choir boys, which is like this kind of savage takedown of LAPD. You know, like people

come here to catch 22, which I think is an overrated book, but it's like way nastier than that. It reminds me of the short timers. It's like really, really nasty. But not in a way that's unduly punitive. I think it accurately reflects the era. I mean, it was before my time. You know, my civic memory begins in the very early 80s. I don't remember the 70s. I was born in the 70s. But in between that kind of trilogy of fiction books, like later he started writing kind of like hard-boiled detective stuff.

But in between that, he wrote this seminal, it's probably the seminal true crime book after in Cold Blood. It's the Onion Field, which was a horrible case. And Wamba was a police when this incident happened. and I'll get into the details of it in a minute, but these two police officers were abducted and murdered. One of them was murdered, the other one got away. The guy who got away, it's almost like he endured a fate worse than had he been murdered. You know, but that, and the film version, they made a TV movie out of it, which was one of James Woods' first.

roles and James Woods the guy we plays the cop killer was this guy named Gregory Ulus Powell like if that's not like an old school convict name I don't know what it is but Woods like like looked exactly like the dude it was like uncanny and you know it uh Parker was a LAPD chief when this went down and and Parker for all of his kind of all the good things we can say about him, he really, really mismanaged the aftermath of this situation. And it's interesting how, you know, despite the, I'm the first one to suggest that it's ridiculous and people talk about how, oh, in the pre-Kennedy assassination era, we lived in simple times or something. Like, America was totally fucking fool.

It was the wrong simple times. Especially if you're going to talk about America, which literally born out of like race war. Like, that's ridiculous. However, there was a weird randomness to violence and particularly homicide that very suddenly jumped off and endured in absolute earnest for about 35 years and then very, very suddenly stopped. I kind of think of like the last incident to that cycle in terms of perception and media narrative as Columbine.

Okay. And like, it just like dropped off suddenly. Nobody can explain it. You know, like the freakonomics types, that books kind of fallen off would, thankfully, because it's an idiotic book. But the refrain of these kinds of lefty progressives was, oh, well, Roe v. Wade meant that, you know, unwanted children weren't born. So all these kinds of social pathologies that would have afflicted this population that didn't exist, you know, were absent. So, you know, that's why. That doesn't explain why.

and it's not there were many population booms or into immigration and only to other things particularly localized and this hasn't like duplicated like it doesn't make any sense it's it's um I mean I have my own thoughts on why these kinds of things happen

but it's probably you know most people probably dismiss it as overly metaphysical as it may like the onion field case it very much like even more so in the kiddie Genoves incident which has kind of been like mythologized and there's a lot of cap around what actually happened there. You know, that was that poor woman who was assaulted and like stabbed to death in front of her neighbors and nobody did anything and nobody called it in. I mean, granted, that was particularly awful because she was truly like a defenseless female.

But the onion field situation is even more brazen because like these guys, they just like straight up murder a cop. And like something people didn't do back then. I mean, yeah, there was the public enemies era like some decades before. guys that like shoot it out with the police but it's like straight up in cold blood like murdering a cop like shooting him in the face when you didn't have to like that that really when you talk good like you know i grew up with a lot a lot of guys who went NYPD and when you talk to them about people who kill cops they say the reason you catch them in the corner of your eye distinctive by design they move you even before you drive the new cooper plug-in plug-in-a-plug-

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Like he, his rap, he was this like really real sad sack kind of loser hood guy who went by Jimmy Youngblood. He had like 40 different names. I think his birthday was Jimmy Lee Smith, but he went by Jimmy Youngblood. And Jimmy Youngblood, he was a heroin addict. And he'd been spending basically his entire adult life in prison, but it was for bullshit. You know, like stealing radios and like breaking into cars and like robbing people so that he could get dope. And Powell really kind of like roped them into this like psycho stuff.

You know, and that's not just a, that's not just a cop out at trial. Those dynamic, there really are dynamics like that. There's no other thing as like a partnership of equals between rapies who do bizarre, violent crimes. It's always, and Powell, too, he, he didn't have a traditional criminal background. Like, he was raised in some crummy suburb of Detroit. His father was a musician, this itinerant musician, and they never had any money. But Powell ran away from home when he was 14 or 15, and he took up with this kind of fake itinerant priest who molested him.

And that totally screwed him up. So after that, Paul would, like, he'd periodically decide he was gay, even though, like, by the time he was arrested, he had, like, a wife who was pregnant with his kid. But then Powell goes to prison. First, he was on death row, and then he got man emitted, you know, when the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty. You know, and he got, in typical California fashion, there was a couple of retrials, but he ended up serving life without parole. Okay. He had a couple of parole hearings decades on, but, I mean, there was no chance he was going to get a conditional release. but when he was behind the wall,

he decided he was like full on gay and he started like writing for like gay rights publications and stuff. It was like an early example of like the gay movement having horrible optics because in one of their rags that I guess was pretty widely circulated in the West Coast in the 70s and 80s.

It's like, why do you have this like cop killer like drawing little cartoons and writing for you? So then you know, suddenly like pulled that stuff but you know just like a bizarre guy and he when he committed this murder

like apparently as a young guy like he did a bunch of he did a bunch of felony stints for armed robbery because his thing was like robbing liquor stores and grocery stores like he didn't have a dope habit or anything he was just like doing this stuff

and he'd apparently had brain surgery that it's now believed was botched and like he it basically like fried is his impulse control. And I think today with, you know, modern imaging equipment and stuff, it would probably be clear that this guy's brain was a wreck, like his physical brain. Because his criminal career doesn't make any sense. And also just like the sexual stuff, like, doesn't really track.

And, but he, he, uh, Jimmy Youngblood was on, um, was on parole. and he was in this program before methadone was widely prescribed and before stuff like subutex there was this really strange compound that apparently had really deleterious effects on internal organ and things

that they were trying to give to heroin addicts because it was kind of like the shodby of alcoholics but it didn't really work but Youngblood was conditionally paroled and he was having to go to this medical center for parolees or they shoot him up with this with this compound that supposedly would

cure him of his of his habit and he ran across Powell because Powell and other bizarre things like Powell was married to a white woman and his whole family was white but Powell basically exclusively hung around black folks which is weird

I mean it's weird today it was really weird in 1960 but that's how Youngblood ran into him and he was pulling a high with this degenerate alcoholic, like a hobo, who was a part-time, like, shoe shine, man. And Powell somehow, I mean, presumably, it was not really clear, but presumably it was because young bloodied money for dope that he got, he got sucked into this nonsense of, like, pulling these, like, hindsight and heist of, like, liquor stores and stuff for what amounts to chunk

change. So, their paths crossed with these cops. Because one night, uh, Pollard Youngblood were cruising, uh, Los Angeles, like, presumably they were casing,

um, you know, a place to rob. You know, and they had this, they had this ancient, 19846 Ford Coop. You know,

like an old gangster movies, you know, like it's got that, like, sloped, um, trunk and stuff. You know,

um, if you know what old Ford's look like. And, um, these two police, Ian Campbell and Carl Hedinger, Campbell was the guy

went up getting blasted and murdered. And, you know, both young guys. Campbell, if I, memory he serves, he was a Korean war vet and he was the older man. He was a Scottish type guy.

Like, he played, he literally played bagpipes, you know, like a real heroic guy. You know, and Hedinger obviously looked up to him. But they were assigned to this March 9th, 63, they were assigned to this duty in, you know, in plain clothes.

Like, you know, basically aggressive policing of the old type, you know, and before surveillance tech. Like, you basically just, like, look out for, you know, possible, um, possible subjects. Like, you know, like in, like on the make or whatever. You know, so they pulled over Youngblood and Powell. and Powell just suddenly like drew down on him. He got the jump on Campbell. And this is key. Hedinger had drawn his service revolver.

And he refused to give it up until Campbell said he's got a gun on me, meaning Powell, you know, give up your weapon. And LEPD doctrine at that time, was that if somebody gets the drop on you, give up your weapon because nobody's going to kill a cop for no reason. You know, like, that was the thinking.

So then, Powell, he gets in the front seat. He orders Campbell to drive his car. Youngblood gets in the bag with a head injured. And I think Youngblood had a sort-off shotgun. You know, so then Powell

was just like, drive. You know, And Campbell's like, where are we going? And Powell's like, just drive. You know, he's like, I'm not going to hurt you guys, but you just got to drive. We got to get out of the city. So he drives him all the way to Bakersfield. And he stops finally, he orders Campbell to stop literally in this onion field.

And Penninger said that, like, even before they stopped, he's like, it was pitch play. He couldn't see anything. But he's like, the overwhelming odor of onions. He's like it was making everybody's eyes tear up. He was like it was surreal. So they stop. Powell orders everybody out. And then according to both Youngblood and Hedinger,

Powell looked Campbell in the face and he says, are you familiar with the Lindbergh law? And it's not clear what he meant by that. Like presumably, he was referring to the federal kidnapping statute, which kind of colloquially, I guess, would have been the Lindbergh law. And that was a big deal because after Lindbergh baby, that's another horrible case. After Lindbergh's son, infant son was killed by ransom kidnappers, you know, a federal statute was passed that, you know, imposed,

there was no open-ended federal death penalty. But kidnapping for ransom became a death penalty offense after that. that. So presumably in like the warped and like mangled mind of Powell, his notion was I don't want to waste you, but I have to now because I kidnapped you, which makes zero sense. Then he just blast him in the face. He like, I think he had like a 25 automatic. He just like emptied the magazine into him. And, um, head injured related. He heard somebody screaming and he's like, at first, that was Campbell, but then I realized it was Youngblood, like Youngblood just, like, freaked out. And presumably that's what's would save head injure's life, because Youngblood was, like, panicking, and he didn't blast him.

So Head Inger ran for literally four miles. And there was some kid, some, uh, some black kid who was getting an early start, like some farmhand, you know, like three in the morning. You know, Henry told him what happened. And then, you know, he called for help and everything. But the way they dealt with Hedinger, Parker forced him to address, like, police academy classes. He forced him to address, like, squad rooms full of street officers, like, basically reliving what had happened to him. And then having the watch commander say, see, this is why you never give up your weapon. You'll end up like him.

I mean, like, basically torturing the guy, you know, under auspices. I mean, I think Parker was that uptooth. I think he didn't realize what was wrong with this. And then he put him on coach duty as his personal driver. And Hedinger predicted we started losing his mind. You know, and he didn't know what it hand licks. And the one hand, everybody, like, pitied him. And the other hand, they treated him with this kind of, like, haughty contempt.

Like, you was some kind of pussy or something. And he came to a very sad. And he ended up getting dismissed from the police department because he was doing bizarre things, including like shoplifting, worthless items. I mean, it was obvious that, I mean, so, like, the guy, like, blew a gasket. I mean, obviously, to be flippant or mean about it. You know, and he ended up working as a gardener and then, like, drinking himself to death in middle age, like, in the 90s. You know, it's just like a horrible situation. But that, one of the, this made a huge impact on the public consciousness, but particularly police and the cultural policing, it was already going in kind of a strange direction anyway.

Okay. And that, that's really what, that's really kind of what put over the idea of like paramilitarized policing. You know, and that stuff like the Watts riots, like solidified it. You know, like for contacts during Watts, there was like snipers taking up positions to like blast cops. You know, it was like urban combat, you know, and, um, Wambaw makes a big deal in the choir boys. By the 1970s, a lot of police departments, including LAPD, had adopted the commander rank. and he thought that this was really bad you know and it's um

the subject to the choir boys it opens up in Vietnam and two of the cops two of the choir boys they're um they have this terrifying experience for their hiding from the North Vietnamese army in a cave

like outside of Kaysan you know the one man is a panic attack and then years later you know like five years later when he's on duty with LAPD, he has a flashback and there's a horrible outcome because he ends up blasting this armed civilian and ruining his life. But all the choir boys who are the subject of the book, they're all these kind of like,

they're all these kind of like pastiche characters of different archetypes that were on LAPD at the time. but all of them except kind of the old head who's around 50 who's still a beat cop just because that's where he's comfortable they're all vietnam vets and um they're all unhinged they've all got like a head full of war and um that era of lapd they actively sought out guys who did experience in nam that wasn't accidental some of that went on here too um i'm not even saying that was misguise on its own terms, but the way I questioned some of the motives for that. Like John Burge, you know, who was a fucking menace, like here, you know,

Burge tortured a bunch of confessions out of people. And a lot of these guys, like, hadn't done anything. But Burge, Burge was an MP and Nam, but he was involved in all kinds of strange stuff. And he had a bronze star with the Ballard device. he'd been in heavy action, but he also, a lot of his duty involved enhanced interrogation of Viacog suspects. You know, so this man had a skill set that for a 1970s police department was very much in demand. You know, and Wob always makes the point, in the choir boys especially, but in a lot of his other stuff, you know, he's like, a police department is basically a political

administration. He's like you have it. It has to be visible because the voters want the voters want to be able to call somebody if not to be crass like their kids walking to school and he runs across some guy jaking off in the bushes or something. They want to believe there's some kind of like formal recourse for that. But like the police can't solve sociological problems. Like the police can't solve like a race war. The police can't make people like not use drugs. Like this isn't something, this isn't like,

these aren't criminal matters. I mean, they can become that way. But that's like, Wamba's all points. So in the choir boys, basically, these guys have an impossible job.

And some of there are just like goons who want their name to ring out and they just like to fuck people up. Like some of them are like, uh, like 1960s idealist boomer types who think that like, oh, well,

you know, if you can bring some kind of diplomacy and understanding, you know, the officer civilian interaction, then we can have like a more peaceable community. But it's like, that's not the police's job either. You know,

so the recurring motif and Wamba stuff is like cops who commit suicide because they just become like, they just like crash the fuck out. And especially then, that was a very real thing. You know, and it's,

um, Wobo makes the point, you know, in the 60s or 70s, 70s when all this crazy stuff was happening. Even if you survived 20 years as like a beat cop, like you don't get shot, you don't get like maimed,

you know, you get like your full pension. It's like, fine, now I'm like retired, but I'm like 41 years old. Like what I'm gonna do is with my life? And a lot of these guys were divorced by then. They got a drinking problem. It's like something like sit around my house

and like drink a lot. Like how many fishing trips can you possibly take? Like it's not, it's not, being like a big city cop. is not a good way to go through life. You know, and like, I'm not, I'm, like, trashing guys

whose wife shook out that way. Like, there's a lot of policemen who, like, follow my content and stuff, and that's great. But, you know, Wamba, like, he basically, uh, there's always a stock character in his novels or some, like, older guy who, like,

helps rookies understand how you survive, like, in the deep hood and how you can, like, make it to 20 years. but then these guys like, you know, three months after they retire, everybody gets a word, they blew their fucking brains out. And Juan Boy, he kind of would hint around it because he, you know, was like a reserved guy. But, you know, he said there's a reason why, like, I left the police force immediately when I started making money from writing. Because he's like, I wasn't going to end up like one of those guys. You know, and that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty,

leak man but uh the um what's significant too is is what like a microcosm it is of um of then versus now you know and that's one of the reasons for i mean obviously the these these these horrible people in um government um and these NGO radicals and others who shall not be named You know, they obviously seize on stuff like the George Floyd situation, you know, as a kind of detonation strategy. But the reason why they're able to do that is because policing, as it's been conceptualized, really from the mid-20th century onward, like, that's dead. Like, that's obsolescent.

You know, like, it doesn't, you know, if we accept what Lomba said about it being basically a political function and a kind of like sociological theater. Like people don't respond to it that way anymore. And also like the ubiquity of body camps changes everything. Because like what cops do is such that like I'm not talking about like Mayberry type police. But like Chicago PD or like LAPD or like NYPD, like the kind of stuff these guys do.

You know like basically it basically involves like breaking down like street dudes who otherwise would be cavalier in the way that they apply violence. And you can't have that. Because, you know, as a sovereign government, local or otherwise, can't allow that and still retain credibility. But also, there's got to be an understanding that if you transgress certain parameters, is like you're going to get broken down. And you can't, that doesn't work in, in, in, in, in, in the era that Panopticon. But it's also people just kind of move differently.

Like the whole, one of the, um, one of the recurring motifs, especially in the choir boys, is like when these cops answered calls, like in the deep hood, it's like you're all by yourself. And even, and until the 80s, squad cars were called, quote, radio cars, because cops didn't even have a radio on their person. So basically, like, you go through a door if you're partnered with somebody and police department's deployed, how they deployed, like, varied by region and by department. But at best, you're going to have, like, one guy with you. And the most firepower you're going to have is a 12 gauge, which is a great weapon. Don't get me wrong. But that doesn't, if you're, if, if, if, if, if there's armament five deep, like, that, that doesn't do anything, you know, um, so while I'm

I was talking about how scary it was to, like, have to, like, breach doors by yourself. You know, but now, I mean, not only the cops have body cams, and most police departments is, like, literally, like, a live feed, like, back to where they're deployed from. You know, they're in constant contact with a radio on their person, like, deployment patterns of such that there's, like, total situational awareness. But also, like, things are just, like, different. Like, you wouldn't, there's not the same potential for lawlessness. It's like when lawlessness does jump up, it's very punctuated, and it's very scaled, and it's very bad.

But there'd never be a situation like the Bronx was back in the 80s, or like, um, Wrigleyville was in the early 80s when it was like a shithole where there's just kind of like guys moving around and like praying on random people, you know, because they want money or they or something. Like that doesn't happen anymore. you know not because not because people have become less simian or something but it it just not how you move anymore if if you're um if you if you're on the make like that you know so and also too like it like people people are hip to the fact they're like always on camera you know like if you're gonna do i mean don't gonna be wrong like horrible stuff does still happen and there's like a way you can do it where you're you're out of sight of the electric eye but it

it's different. And people's living patterns, too, you don't have, you don't have situations anymore where we've got, like, thousands and thousands of people are kind of like trapped in some urban environment that's failing. And like, even like the

deep hood, that's its own thing, but it's different. And that's kind of like bandit country. You know, it's, um, the people there aren't like actively engaging with the police and wanting the police to kind of help quash these antisocial instincts that, you know, periodically flare up and stuff. So, I maintain that, like, modern policing is dying.

And you, and in the traditional sense, the traditionally understood sense of what the job entailed, it's not like illegal for cops to move that way. So, I mean, this isn't, you know, and I know that, especially a lot of older folks, And I'm not trashing older folks. I am one. They have this idea like, well, we just need to take the gloves off and quote, let cops do their job. Like, they don't understand what I'm talking about. Like, even if, like, you told cops, like, look, you can, you can crack heads and, like, break people the fuck down. Like, it's 1989.

That wouldn't resolve the problem. And the public wouldn't like that, I don't think. Like, that wouldn't make them, that wouldn't make boogies feel safe. That's not what they want. They don't want the police to go away. They're full of shit when they claim that on Facebook or whatever. But what I just described isn't what they want. But also, like, you know, it, um, it, uh, I don't think that, uh, I, I don't think the, the, the will would be there anyway.

because it's too open-ended, if that makes any sense. And I think, too, you know, this is not just for political reasons, but this has been in the running for a minute. And, you know, guys like Thomas Chittam used to write about this in the 90s, and he and those like him got something's wrong, but he got something's right. And the privatization of armed force as well as protective service, that's very much like a real thing. And that's increasingly going to become the face of policing.

And in 50 years, I don't think you're going to have a regular police department. But yeah, obviously, if you go kill your neighbor, you know, somebody's going to show up. Some of those somebody's going to be heavily armed. They're going to take you into custody and follow you before a judge. But it's not going to be, we have guys in these like blue and white cars driving around. looking for people who are fucking up or something. Like, that's done. It's not going to happen anymore.

You know, and even, even here where things are, like, a lot more draconian, and we're kind of, like, in a time work here. Like, police are, like, way, way less, like, aggressive in terms of what kind of conduct, though they'll throw bracelets on you for. You know? and that's not, um, that that's not just, uh, and then that's enduring even now that, like,

you've got, we've got like a very like law and order president in the new little office. It's not, it's not just the pendulum swinging back or something. Like it's, like, sociologically, the things have become such that, um, what we're describing is, is no longer viable. And, um, you know, I, uh, it's, it should, it should seem strange to people anyway, like whether you live in the city or the country this idea of we're going to hire a bunch of young military age males who aren't from your community

who you have no idea who these guys are they're going to be heavily armed and just kind of like tell you to do things and lay the hammered out on people when they decide a crime's underway that's like really really really invasive you know and there's conditions where

you've got to sacrifice certain freedom of movement and liberty because otherwise there can't be public order and it's absolutely the way things were in the mid-20th century. Things aren't like that anymore. You know, and one of the things that underlies the fact that like the gun control lobby finally like gave up, like it's not just because that issue became like a big loser politically. Like that put, that mistakes the cause of the effect.

Like that issue became a loser because frankly, if you don't want aggressive policing, you basically have to accept the fact that people, Latin American, are going to be armed with the teeth. You know, and it's really interesting, very abruptly, everybody just kind of capitulated on that issue.

You know, I realize there's still token efforts and bullshit, you know, and meaningless derivations, you know, like, oh, this is an assault weapon, so it's bad and it's banned, even though assault weapons don't exist. or there's, you know, ways locally like here, you can sort of like bury people under paperwork to deprive them of their Second Amendment rights in a de facto kind of way while still, you know,

complying with the litter of the law. But, you know, the circumstances I'm always describing about deliberate communities, you know, quitting the social engineering regime, which, you know, is already happening, but in those deliberate communities, you're not going to have just like random guys from other places coming in to police them. People aren't going to tolerate that anymore. You know, like, um, the hood's not going to tolerate like a bunch of like random white guys doing that. Like, we're not going to tolerate some like random fucking Hindu guys who watch too much TV deciding they're going to call police us. Like, that's a war with. You know, um,

there's still going to be places. I think, I think people, I think people instinctively even like the big law and order boomers and everything like that know that what if you send somebody into police like if you're sending a bunch of suburban white guys into the hood in the inner city that's just an invading army and even if people can't even if people can't articulate that they instinctively know it and they're reacting to it and it's a terrible idea and i mean no make no mistake. Like I'm more sympathetic to 1980s LAPD than a lot of people.

And whether it's the only movie colors, that's a really great movie. It's just cool. But it's also, you know, like when it opens up and it's Operation Hammer, where Gates is basically like flying crash, they're just like, they're throwing the brace that's on like

any military age male like flying gang colors. Because Gates's notion is like, let's arrest like all these mother fuckers. And even if they bond out, you know, in 36 hours when they get in front of a judge, or even if, like, you know, they get cut loose without even a bonding set, he's like, now we know, now we got an idea, like, the force levels of these guys and what their set is and, like, what territory they claim, you know, so we can build, like, a conceptual picture of, like, what opt for is. And, like, it really was, like a war, you know, and the movie gets into that,

you know like especially where I think uh they don't other than the crips in the blood is like they use euphemisms for the other gangs but they're but there's like the there's like the mostly spanish gang but they're supposed to be 18th street and like they assault the crypts and uh like the one dude uh the one who's got a mac 10 and then don chieel he's got an AKK and they're like throwing like throwing like frags at each other like it's not just like i was watching this movie with this chick, I know, it was like a lot younger than me. And she was like laughing. I'm like, no, you don't understand. Like, shit was like that. I'm like, it's not just like cartoon stuff, you know. And so, I mean, I, I don't think Gates was, was a great guy, but I, I understand what is,

I understand his, his, his, his, his tad of orientation. And it wasn't just crazier and he wasn't just being some tyrant or something. But I mean, that's, that's not the way things, that's not the way things are anymore. And, you know, also I, like 9-11 change things in ways that I don't think, in ways that are, in ways that are severe, but also somewhat subtle. And, like, I, you know, basically, there's certain sorts of conduct that take the individual so engaged out of consideration as,

as a criminal actor, and it becomes okay to blast them. And this is a fact. You know, so this idea that, well, you know, the normie idea, like, well, we need the police because, like, what about terrorism or what about, like, mass shooters? It's like, that's not really a police problem. Like, that means you need people to deploy to kill them. You know what I mean? That's not to say you post up the Army of the National Guard to patrol the streets. but that means that the response to those kinds of crises are not,

we're going to send a police department to frisk and arrest people. You know, it's a totally different mission orientation. And increasingly, that kind of thing is going to be privatized. It's like if the idea is, which the idea should be, for anyone who's serious about physical security that's sort, is to preempt violence before it happens. Well, I mean, you basically, it's like Eric Prince talked about

after the attempt on Trump's life on one of those podcasts. He's like, you don't really want a police sensibility if you're trying to protect the president or presidential candidate. You know, you're not looking for, quote, suspicious people. you're not skating the crowd for a guy who's maybe strapped, you know, you're looking for threats. And when you identify those threats, you neutralize them.

And, yeah, like sometimes you're wrong and that's bad. But, I mean, that's, there's liabilities, moral and material that tend to any profession that, you know, deals with violence as its currency. But, you know, that, that Prince is an interesting guy and he he understands this better than most people, despite the fact his background is military, not police. But I think that actually is one of the things to which his insight owes because it's hard to see the parameters of changing phenomenon, particularly sociological or political phenomenon. like from within an institution.

You know, and if you're, even if you're on the younger side, if you're like a cop who's been doing this for like a decade or longer, like basically your entire conceptual horizon, you know, orbits around kind of like police science and the kind of strictures that, you know, supposedly are the kind of core tenets of policing when that's pretty much dead in the water.

And I mean, especially these days, too, you know, I lament a lot to death of the public intellectual, like, as a type of person. Because I think they played an essential role. And that's one of the reasons things have been dumbed down so much into the Cold War is it's hard to deterrent if this is like a causal variable or just like a secondary effect. I mean, it's both. But, you know, there's this really great documentary called The Futurists. And it came out on it in the 70s, like around the time. It very much was riffing on Alvin Toffler, the guy who wrote Future Shock, which is a really good book. But, you know, Prince is the only guy I've heard talk about the fact that, you know, these days,

if you want to hurt people or if you want to or if you want to assassinate a public official or a high value target, you don't even need to put eyes on them and close physical distance and blast them. I mean, you could program drones to swarm them. Like, that would take some planning and some money, but there's guys who have never even had a, a, smartphone, like in the traveler is a Pakistan, like they learn how to program drones. It's not like you need to be some

it's not you need to be some like under 17 like boy genius to do it. You know, they're very they're very util in battlefield situations for that reason. You know?

And so this idea too that like, well, unless we have like physical eyes on the ground doing like patrols like we we we can't control a we we can't not control we can't we can't provide security for you know for a physical space like this nonsense like you don't need to do that anymore in fact that might not even help and what are you going to hypothetically and god forbid and thank god that doesn't happen i mean let's say let's say the president or you know somebody else wasn't like trump situation and like a dozen like drones like converge on i'm like see what they're going to do. Start blasting the drones.

If they're Kamikaze drones, they're all going to dive and then blow up. You know, I mean, like, what are you going to do about them? It's, um, such that, um, there is a countermeasure. I mean, yeah, you do need, you do still

need eyes on the operational area. Like, especially you look like spotting for somebody controlling those drones, but that guy could be 14 kilometers away. Okay. Um, you know, things like that, you know, and I realize that like people, the rebuttal is going to be like, like, subs watching. It's going to be like, well, that's not what like beat cops do. It's like, no, but that comes back to what I said before.

A lot of this stuff is, is becoming privatized. And a lot of it, you know, there's not really a civic culture that interfaces with the bureaucracy anymore. You know, like in a lot of ways, that's positive because stuff like we're doing, we're building genuine community in a deliberate way. but I don't want to fuck with the police. Like if somebody, if somebody tried to hurt me or my dad at my home, I'd defend myself. And God forbid, if somebody died, like somebody attacking me,

obviously I'd call it in, so I didn't get charged with murder. But beyond that, like, if somebody, if somebody, if, like, if I was at Starbucks, then I thought, I discovered somebody stole my wallet, I'm not going to call a police.

They're not going to care. Like, what are they going to do? This isn't 1980 or something where it's like if you have a problem, oh, you call the police because there's kind of like this not particularly intimate or deep, but there is this kind of like basic moral consensus where it's like, okay, like all, you know, all non-marginal people like call the police to resolve, you know, these these kinds of slights to the person or their property. Like nobody thinks that way anymore. know, so a lot of that's dead. And as far as like physical security and stuff, it's like, well, you know, you should be, you should be thinking about self-defense. You shouldn't be thinking, like, I'm going to call the police protect me. I mean, don't get me wrong. I realize there's, you know, if you're like a single woman in like a big city or something, like I have no doubt that

that can be like very scary. And, you know, you need to be able to call people to help you stuff because, you know, some people are vulnerable. And that's a difficult question. You know, and there's going to be gaps in the protection that certain vulnerable people need. And that's not a good thing. That's the way things always are. That doesn't somehow negate or defeat sociological trends that are driven by historical processes and move-ons. So that's important.

What I will say is they take it back. Forgive me because I wanted to, I should have said this when we were kind of breaking down Walmah's catalog. The new Centurians is like a good book. Yeah, it's like pro-police stuff. And because he was, he was like an LAPD sergeant when he wrote it. And so obviously he wasn't going to trash the organization.

But also, you know, like we talked about really earlier episode, LAPD has always been kind of like uniquely, interfaced with media. Like, I guarantee you that LAPD was way more involved in, like, the process of many the officer was, like, writing something, whether it was, like, a TV or a film script or a novel. So I guarantee you we had, like, like, administration guys, like, literally looking over his shoulder. But it does, um, there's, it basically, it doesn't have a traditional plot.

It's very episodic. And there's three, it follows. these three young guys, like, through the police academy, and then, like, they hit the street. And, like, one of the guys' names is Duran. He's basically, like, a... He's, like, a Tejano guy, but he's, like, a white dude. He, like, doesn't identify with, like, Chicano. He's not from East L.A.

But because of, like, his appearance and his surname, like, he gets deployed, like, East L.A. And, like, the heart, basically... I think around Echo Park, I have to reread it. but he uh it that's probably the most like people criticize the books saying like oh well he draws non-like characters in simple-minded terms

I think that's the wrong way to look at it because all issue with Duran is that Duran's like he he gets like the echo part of beat or whatever and he's like I'm not like these fucking people like your scumbags but then he realizes like on the street like you are Mexican like you are Mr. Policeman people think you're one of them

you know it It doesn't matter. And, like, as, um, and it's interesting, too, because, like, his perspective, obviously and those are the people, he's charged with policing, like, as the watch rights jump off, you see, like, what, what the Spanish folks are thinking, you know, because they're kind of like, they're kind of like this third variable, you know, and then, like, one of the dudes is, um, he's like this guy, like, flunked out of college, you know, and he needs to, like, do something so he becomes a cop, you know, and he's convinced he's, like, smarter than everybody and shit.

And he kind of, like, looks down on his stuff. fellow officers. He's just, it's kind of like regular, like, middle-class white dude. But then, like, he gets, um, he gets assigned, like, the deep hood. So, like, when Watts jumps off, like, he gets, he's, uh, he's, like, under fire and stuff. And then he realizes, like, uh, he gets, like, humbled by the whole experience. You know, like, stuff like that. It's, um, you know, and I'm sure some people, especially, like, younger guys and girls would think it was like corny like the kind of you know they're the kind of like um 1960s era kind of like bumper sticker patriotism but it it is like uh it is kind of like a

it is kind of like a snapshot and it's called the new centurion this is like the third guy um who i think is supposed to be wamba because he's just kind of like this like regular dude who's who's um you know wants to be a police officer and um he's doesn't have a lot of vices and stuff, but the guy who, uh, the guy who teaches him how to, like, be a street cop ends up committing suicide. But that dude tells him, like, we're the new centurians, because basically America is like the failing Roman Empire, you know, and, and the only thing that stands between the barbarians, you know, and, and what remains a civilization, like, are us. And that's, that's kind of like as bleak and subversive,

the book gets but then like the character that drops that like he blows his brains out and it turns out he's like this big alcoholic so I think that's like Wamba dropping like real talk with the all by oh no that's a disturbed character but that's interesting because it um

I one of the one of the vignettes I like in the movie cruising with Al Pacino which is an underrated like the subject matter is gross and that puts a lot of people off, but I think it's kind of like an American Jallo picture. I really like it.

But the opening scene, there's these two cops, and one was played by Joe Spinell. And they're driving around, I guess it's I think it, I think they're actually in Alphabet City,

but I think it's supposed to be the village. And they go by and there's there's like these dudes, like in leather and these guys, you know, these transsexuals and stuff and Spinell's just like, he's like, what the hell is happening? You know, and it's like, uh, you get that sense like in the new centurians. Like, um, especially like in the Danubea where like the character's paths finally cross and

watch. It's like, you know, I took this job because I wanted to like help vulnerable people or whatever. And like, I literally pinned down my own dumpster because there's a sniper like popping off at me with a 30 out six. Like what was happening here? like something's something's coming apart

you know and um so it's worthwhile for that reason well I wrote some later books and like I said it's kind of interestingly James Elroy well I've mixed feelings about but I I do think he's important to

Los Angeles culture in some ways and um I um I identify with him in some respects but he he said when he was home with some he said he said he saved a bunch of his money from panhandling and stuff and

like um and uh so he could buy um the onion field he said it was like his favorite book you know and he and he always like looked up the cops and things like that and um so he she'd shout out Wamba

a lot in his books and then Wambaw started writing books kind of in the vein of Elroy like the later stuff he wrote was kind of like hard-boiled type stuff. One of his books is about, like, 1980s, like, like, San Fernando Valley and, like, porn shit.

And it's kind of grimy. I mean, that's a grimy fucking subject. But it, but it's, I didn't find it off-putting, but I thought that it was, for tabla reasons, I mean, I read all kinds of stuff that people probably find would think is gross, but

it seemed, um, it sounds, it seems kind of like, affected about it. So I wouldn't recommend as like later stuff, but definitely read the onion field.

I don't read the choir boys. The choir boys is one of the, when I was sending out frog packages before it became too like Belluminous to send them out to people. I want to get back to doing that, but I'm going to have to do it in a way where it's not just like me going to the post office and sending packages, but I think I sent

out like five or six paperbacks to the choir boys because I I like the book that much. It's had a not insignificant impact on my own writing. But yeah, that's what I got for Wamba. I appreciate you

abiding my suggestion because, like I said, I think I think he's an important contributor to the kind of catalog of police lit, particularly in the capacities we're talking about. So I thought it was important in. But I have a suggestion. This episode was sort of like our movie reviews.

And I think we should release one. publicly so people can see what's, uh, you know, what we do. Yeah, man. I think, uh, I think resurrection man would be a good one to release publicly,

um, because that's one where you, you're, you're just breaking down the whole history of everything and the real guys and I think people really get off on that. Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to review it is because I thought people would be thirsty. Because people,

when I drop troubles oriented content, like people seem to be really interested in it, you know, and I try and do so very respectfully. because for obvious reasons. And I'm lucky that, you know, I'm lucky that Ulster natives, including, like, you know, my dear friend, Lady of Shalot,

have been willing to collab with me on stuff, you know, because that's my bloodline and my confessional heritage. But obviously, I mean, I'm a fucking, like, Chicago jig off. I don't have to be excited to, other than I don't have any great insight into the troubles, man. I just, I, I, I mean, kind of an obsessive study of it because it's my heritage, but obviously, you know, that that's a totally different thing. But, yeah, I think if it, I think if it got the right audience, they would really pop.

And yeah, that's a good idea. I think now is the time to do it. Yeah, I'll throw it up on my YouTube channel and direct everyone there to it. So, thank you for this. this. We'll talk about what to do next and privately. And do some plugs. And I'm going to go talk to the OG. Go talk to the old glory club, guys. That's great. I'm launching season three of the pod the first week in February.

And the guy who's going to collab with me on the first couple episodes. I talked to him by phone today, which is awesome. I'm going to tweak it a little bit. I'll explain before I release, before I upload it. But I'm every day, today like I took five, the first five episodes from season one from behind the paywall. I'm going to keep doing that every day. I'm going to remove five episodes of mine the paywall until season one and two are

totally free. And I'm going to upload a bunch of other like free shit, like content that I haven't released before. You can find all that. good stuff on my substack. It's real Thomas 777. It's substack.com. I'm on social media at

capital R-A-L number 7, H-M-A-S-7777. And you can go to my website, Thomas-777.com, but the first T, or the only T, is a 7. Those are the best places to find me. And like I said, I'm going to make some changes, but I keep everybody in the loop of what I'm doing, like, on substack.

You know, at least once a week, I shout out, like, what's happening and what I'm doing. So that's the place to go. All right. Thank you so much. Until the next time. Yeah, man.