The Pete Quiñones Show - Modern Policing's Origins and Issues w/ Thomas777 - Complete

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

3 HoursPG-13This is the complete audio of the modern policing series with Thomas777.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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Trading as Kupra Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana show. Thomas, hey, how are you doing? I'm doing very well. Thanks for hosting me. Of course. Well, this is a subject that

came out of a Twitter conversation, but it's a subject that I've talked about a lot in the past. And I know you have some very strong opinions on. So let's get into this. Let's talk about the police. The thing to keep in mind is that modern policing, it's as structured, like, as we conceptualize it here in the United States. as a subject of recent vintage, people seem to this idea, I mean, there's all kinds of mythologies around the modern state that somewhat deliberately have been cultivated, that they try and seem it into people, this idea that these features are perennial, like structurally, I mean, as well as ethically, when they're not. So when you raise the issue with people that modern policing is kind of run its course and it's kind of being phased out, like people seem to think one of two things. if they don't know me and are particularly sophisticated on, you know, political sociology and

things like that, they have this idea that I'm forwarding some, you know, some, you know, some men or gift argument. Like, I want the police to go away and they don't have a mandate. I'm not saying that. I mean, that whether they're true or not doesn't matter. Or they think of suggesting that this kind of lump and revolt, however, contrived and, you know, cultivated by organized political interests

is just going to be like public pressure is going to be such that police departments become so kind of gilded and defanged verbally speaking that they can no longer implement the mandate that they've been granted. I'm not saying that either. Okay. What I'm saying is that in structural terms

is this something that's run its course. Okay, and increasingly, police functions are going to continue to collapse into what in the post-Polwar era has been viewed as kind of military and general security functions. Police services are going to be increasingly privatized. You know, there's going to be less and less of a distinction between the domains wherein, armed force enjoys legitimacy, either conditional legitimacy or in an absolute sovereign capacity. Okay. And this is inextricably bound up with the modern state as it exists today being really rather obsolete. Okay. But to understand, too, like kind of what these exigencies are that are presenting these kinds of challenges to police departments. particularly big city police forces not exclusively it's not just a matter of like you know post george

floyd um sentiment and kind of political narratives like those narratives are able to take rude on grounds the phenomenon i'm talking about okay you know and i think this is all very ill understood But, you know, I can point a lot that the American system, like, really mirrors the UK system, you know, politically and otherwise. The father, quite literally, of modern policing was Robert Keel. He was also kind of the founder of the modern conservative party in Britain. like the Tories existed before Peel's tenure as prime minister and he was

prime minister twice but he he kind of brought the party into the you know into the end of the modern age in a lot of ways okay and controlling populations that scale particularly in a divided society

that's really kind of the conditions precedent for a modern police department. And you make no mistake, the UK is a uniquely divided society, and it always has been, okay? That's one of many parallels between America and the UK. It's not just Anglican cultural foundations. You know, there's divisions in the UK that there's not in, or they're worked in Germany, when Germany was, you know,

in the brief period, it was unified, but also a sovereign republic. There's, there's, there's institutionalized divisions there that, that don't exist in France, okay? And this, this bears directly on, on Peel's mandate and, and why he proceeded the way he did in devising the first real urban police department. Peel was born into money. His father was a career politician, but he'd made a fortune in textile manufacturing. So P.O. and his whole family, they were kind of insinuated into the, they both had like one foot, kind of in the old nobility. And I think, I think Pio was a, there was a, there was a baronet or a barony in his name. But he also very much was part of the kind of nascent, you know, industrial producer class.

You know, and his education, I've looked at that too. You know, he took a degree. both in classics and in mathematics. He first entered the House of Commons. That's a very young guy, I think around 22 years old, 1809. But where he really kind of made his bones, as it were, as kind of a political manager and fixer was his home secretary. You know, and home secretary, especially in those days, kind of at the zenith of the empire, it was a very important role. you know and the mandate was very broad and it attracted not just ambitious men but also a lot of a lot of men who had ideas about you know the sociological nature of the mandate that the office carried with it you know um and he started out as kind of a conventional old school tory um Initially, he very much was behind the institutionalized discrimination against Catholics.

He did a 180 on that, and this wasn't just for cynical reasons, because otherwise he wouldn't have stuck to his guns in the way he did on these kinds of matters of equity and social matters. He sponsored the Catholic Relief Act of 1828, which, for all practical people, purposes repealed was globally known as the Test Act, which had banned Catholics from basically all manner of government service, as well as making sure they didn't get officers commissions in the British Army that would have put them in instead to influence, you know, policy in the in the outer empire. this is very institutionalized okay um that's not just something that phanians say or that um you know kind of like old school like you know what remains of like you know the the kind of vestigial cadre of old school

labor party types who you know who who emphasize that is um you know being like a key tenant of the Tories as being this this party of sectarian bigotry. You know, it actually was, the UK was rabbley anti-Catholic until the 20th century. In a lot of ways, they still are, although obviously the situation is complex in ways it wasn't, because, you know, it's no longer a sovereign country. And there's this kind of constellation of ethnicities that don't have any meaningful, you know, historical experience. in the UK. But, you know, incidentally, the reason why, like, in the UK, you know,

cops are called Bobby's because, you know, of Robert Peel. And in Ulster, they're called Peelers, which is interesting. I think there's, you know, the former kind of treats, like, like, almost suggests, like a mascot role, the latter, you know, kind of, kind of suggests that they're ops. Like, you know, it's, I think it's kind of telling. Um, it's new answers. Ready for huge savings. We'll mark your calendars from November 28th to 30th because the Lidl Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items, all reduced to clear.

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be clear to non-conformist Protestants were included in these in these test acts and we're technically precluded from like many of the same roles and being available

to a lot of the same benefits and institutions as Catholics were but like slowly but surely there were de facto and the jury exceptions carved out particularly as a situation in Ireland and deteriorated, but, you know, there was, uh, the law really from, from the time of,

of like the English reformation, you know, until kind of the end of the 19th century, like in every way it was tailored to kind of guarantee that this like Anglican hegemony, you know, like culturally, economically, like in every conceivable way, okay. Can I, let me interrupt. Yes. were the Jews included in this? Yes, but it was complicated because it wasn't, like, a lot of it was unsaid in the case of the Jews. And it's not like there was some party, it's not like there was some like formal revolutionary cadre.

But that was like a Jewish fraternal organization that also, you know, had the power to kind of like impact, like, legislation in the commons like there was de facto but this also that even that wasn't as deep as people think before the white think before the 20th century it was just kind of like a non-factor that's how like disraeli became the prime minister like granted disraeli was he wasn't like kissinger in terms of his personality or in terms of his values but uh he was kind of the jewish one iner who had sort of shed his ethno-sectarian skin

in real ways he wasn't just some Morano you know but that's a whole different issue and the way that was dealt with was a whole different body of like custom and things that

that didn't have to do with you know Christian sectarianism it's a totally different thing and we get into that but it's we we should do it in another series because it doesn't really bear on this. But the writing on the wall,

what ultimately happened, of course, on the heels of World War I in Ireland, like Peel realized, like, there was going to be a real problem here. This kind of like perfect storm of an increasingly radical labor movement that was also increasingly mobilized. the threat of general strike at the core of the empire, which in turn could touch off a sort of wildfire effect that would spread the colored dominions. And on top of that, you know, an open sectarian revolt in Ireland and in London and in Liverpool and in these major urban centers in the UK proper.

like the British home islands, I mean, Ireland, obviously, part of the UK then too, wherein there were, you know, there were ghettoized Catholics who, you know, appreciable numbers of them, this, this could have been a real bloodbath, figurative and literal. And it was a frailty that people were aware of, like men in government, and you know men insinuated not just into titled society type roles but who actually had clout and power you know they realized that there was a real danger here

and these people had to be brought in the fold and made if not patriotic made to believe in good faith terms that they had enough of a mistake in the enterprise that they wouldn't try to burn it down and a modern police force is devised by teal and as well as you know um

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Ireland Limited, subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. In America, like, you know, Peel's counterparts in the post-reconstruction era, you know, they had the same thing on their mind. you know, modern policing, it's not just, it doesn't just owe to the peculiar exigencies of having to manage there to four, you know, unthinkably highly scaled and complex urban environments, which, you know,

basically house, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of workers that staff the national economy, like the way to manage that sociologically and politically and the way to suppress the instincts towards revolutionary violence they're intrinsic to these populations and the condition of which they find themselves they're required a very delicate balancing and you couldn't just treat these people you know like like one might you know cooies revolting in in india or something like politically aside in the fact you don't do that anyway if you live in you know if you live in like a Western society of the era

but it's also politically it would not have been tenable you know you know for context prior to that in lieu of a police department you know there were a night watchman going back to the medieval period who quite literally post up

you know when the when the town gates were closed to keep watch out for marauders or for military enemies or for fires you know literally fire watch and uh that was you know essentially a communitarian volunteer role for younger men i mean there's some kind of stipend and compensation of a nominal sort but you know it was basically derivative of a communitarian impulse and in the case of the court if there was a wanted man you know before the king's bench or in america you know before the you know who was being hailed in the criminal court by the municipality there were constables and bailiffs who were on duty full time or you know you deputize a man of good standing sometimes even a man who was a lawyer you know okay you know

get a posse together and go fetch this bastard, you know, bring him here. Like literally bring him into court. You know, so I mean, that essentially took care of it. And, you know, this idea that there's this kind of permanently mobilized armed force that is insinuated into the community, but also outside of it, that literally patrols in this kind of permanent, you know, and creates like a permanent visible person. presence, like, that didn't exist before. And one of the things that caused so many problems for the police

is that a little over a century on into this, like, urban policing model, which now coincidentally was a concomitant with, you know, the war on drugs, the police became this, they ceased to be this communitarian element, and they ceased to be this kind of symbolic sociological governing mechanism. Like they became this kind of secretive, hostile element that cultivated its own alienage vis-a-vis the community that it was responsible for regulating. You know, and this wasn't some conspiracy. We're getting a lot of ourselves.

it owed the realities of the Cold War, it owed to the nature of criminality at scale in the late 20th century. It owed the inability of social problems to be resolved by truly communitarian structures and as authority, as official, authority both localized as well as you know in absolutely sovereign terms you know that which had like a dominion over the entire entirety of territorial territory of the country you know they they

didn't know what to do about these things um so their fallback was on this enforcement mechanism that had the widest and a deepest mandate proverbial speaking, you know, to regulate human behavior and conduct at scale and to bring to bear punitive sanctions on people who are unwilling to comply with these edicts, be them like moral or pragmatic or both. And that creates kind of a perfect storm of hostilities, you know, but we're not quite there yet, but we'll get there as this goes on. The take To take it back for a minute, to be clear, too, about these test acts and these laws governing the rights of peoples owing to their sectarian confession, this wasn't just superficial. And it wasn't just something that wasn't really enforced, except on a capricious manner, when the authorities saw fit to, you know, deprive somebody of upward mobility.

for some discrete political reason only to emerge crisis or something i mean this was very much a staple of of um of the sociological structure you know um and it basically people supported it you know um if you weren't taking communion in the anglican church um you you basically were excluded from public life, you know, and even if you claimed to not be a practicing Catholic, even if you weren't, if you were not actively engaged with the Anglican church, and if you did not have a family pedigree, whether you were rich or poor or neither, that demonstrably was Anglican, you were viewed as a recusant, okay? And you were viewed as somebody who was not to be trusted. And your neighbors would probably whisper that you were some kind of secret phanian. Even if you weren't ethnically Irish. You know?

And again, like I said, nonconformists were included in these measures too. But the Indemnity Act of 1727 alleviated some of these formal. sanctions, but there's a complex history and kind of, and like rather perverse history between non-conformist and Anglicans that endures really until recent memory with the troubles, but that's, I raise this because that's my own heritage, and like I don't, most of I like E. Michael Jones, he's got a habit of when he says Protestants, he's talking about Anglicans, and I, I, I don't appreciate that. not because that's not because i like something against anglicans i but because it's

he's making a caricature of of the issue um and um you know kind of employing an opportunity target and trying to cast us you know like like reformed people um as uh like with this like broad stroke, as if were some kind of a junior version of the traditional Norman aristocracy or something, and that's not remotely accurate.

That's why I emphasize that. There's a guy, he's a really good story, and his name is Jonathan Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark. And he wrote lot about i think he's still alive he's not he's not i mean he's getting pretty old i think he's in

his 70s now but he was not either like a wig historian nor like one of these marxists so he rejected both the kind of the kind of tory what we view is kind of like the neo-connish like progressive view of history and institutions as being this kind of malible institutions you know in the in the anglophone world being these kinds of malleable things that Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28th to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast.

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You know, through this kind of process of trial and error and ongoing enlightenment, quite literally, you know, social conditions become more equitable in, like, the open society becomes a reality. He rejects that nonsense outright, but nor is he, like, one of these, he speaks a lot like Hobbsbo. I mean, he, I got into an argument, not a, not a hostile or punitive one, but I got to an argument with somebody the other day who, credited Clark with coining the long century, that terminology or that signifier. And he did

speak of the 18th century as the quote long 18th century in similar terms of the Hasbblum described in the 90th century. And undoubtedly, they were familiar with each other's work products. But, you know, Clark wasn't really

a hegelian in the terms of a Habsburg. was. But he obviously has some of those conceptual prejudices. I don't say prejudices in punitive

terms. I mean, that's just very much the way his view of historical time is oriented, particularly as regards mind as the kind of prime move on in the historical process. But his whole point was that

Anglican aristocratic hegemony and the challenges emergent to its hegemony that's really the way to understand everything of a power political nature that happened within and without the United Kingdom like really from the

time of the War III kingdoms up until like World War I and I believe he's correct and an adequately deep reading of a Hobbs, which somebody like Carl Schmidt was very, very, very, very, very, very, adroitly, you know, conveyed in his writings, um, not just in the concept of the political, but in the stuff he wrote directly on Hobbs. He's very much making the same point, although obviously, like his topical, his topical emphases, you know, are, are generally more focused on, on discreet features,

relating the kind of conceptual jurisprudeness and things and kind of theoretical foundations that you know are intrinsic to the the kind of British cultural mind you know and uh and such that there is a British cultural mind it's it's it's it's it's it's it's Anglican and aristocratic and you know so it's a real it's a real phenomenon okay um and again too like that's why the emergence of a modern police element in the UK, it was different than in Germany.

whereby by and large, you know, the police eye have always been sort of like an internal security element that was very much part of the military. Okay.

That doesn't just owe to the fact that, you know, the modern German state is the house that Bismarck build. And that kind of conceptual perspective, especially vis-à-vis policing is very Prussian. I mean, that's part of it.

But I posit that that only became that that was, that only became a feature of the Prussian cultural mind on grounds the basic homogeneity that was accomplished. Now granted, and yes, Germany's

about one third Roman Catholic. But Bismarck's Kulterkopf was tremendously effective in basically rendering the German state and the civil service that constituted that state at a level of executive enforcement to say anything of decision making and become very Protestant by design. And also, sectarian challenges aside, and I don't minimize those. I mean, Germany was literally ground zero of the 30 years war.

This was not like a minor thing. But it was despite the regional attachments to Germans and despite the kind of several populations who are possessed of discrete cultural forms, you know, like a swelior. forms, you know, like a Swabian is not a Prussian, is not a Bavarian, but there is like a German identity, like a Deutsch, like racial identity, if you will. It is not a British race, okay? This constituent elements of Great Britain, but I, nobody would argue to the contrary, I don't believe, okay? And that's fundamentally important. And that's one of the reasons why, again, it's not just

some sort of like anglophone conceptual bias abstracted from historical experience in the UK and in America. One of the common strains that is facilitated this kind of enduring

like a mirroring between the two political cultures like owes to both us and them being like intractively divided societies and I will I will die on that hill. Okay. Now, bring it back to Clark's kind of point and how it relates to our discussion topically. After about 1830 or so, despite the fact that, yeah, the vast majority of not just aristocrats,

but like upperly mobile middle class types in England, but also in the UK and an all or, oh, again, an ulster, it's a little more complicated. People basically believed in, like, not just the divine right of the British crown, but, you know, they believed their hereditary nobility was basically doing his job in historical terms. You know, they believe the kind of parameters of traditional authority from 1066 onward, with the Anglican Church being the kind of theological and aesthetical and cultural and cultural and cultural lynchpin of these things, they viewed that is basically a good thing.

Like, nevertheless, there were political variables that were very real, they were undermining it. You know, and a lot of these sociological or sociopolitical factors were the same things that ultimately were, you know, culminated

in like the 1848 revolutions, you know, which in turn, also, you know, kind of kicked off the decades-long process whereby revolutionary communism kind of became the default perspective of the working classes, you know, locally moderated as it may have been, by traditional cultural practices or a vestigial attachment to the national or local culture or just out and out, you know, like religious belief, you know, that the fact remains that every punctuated way there was cracks emerging within this structure

that really for the preceding, you know, seven, eight, seven or eight centuries had been essentially insurmountable and such that threats to it were emerging. They were emergent from without and the standard bears of these threats were characterized first and foremost by their absolute

alienage, okay? So this changed everything. But, you know, and Pio, the degree to which he quite literally drafted like a manifesto and like various policy papers on what the mandate should be of an urban police department,

and what its relationship should be to the judiciary and the executive and the crown, but most importantly to the community that it served. He drafted some of his allies in the government to produce this document known as the Royal Commission on Constabulary Forces. And the report didn't just, it wasn't just emergent as some kind of last minute policy declaration to appease. On the many nights of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee Christmas nights at gravity.

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Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash Northwest. You know, the official opposition or something. Like there had been a serious committee corral to evaluate. evaluate exactly how this kind of nascent police force, how would work with the poor laws, as they were called, you know, to what degree the police were, you know, to kind of like enforce these superficially paternalistic, but basically punitive, you know, legislative mandates, which conferred upon the local executive, the ability to quite literally, like place people under arrest for practical purposes and put them in poor houses, you know, P.O. was hyper aware

of this potentiality. And he basically said, like, we can't, we can't become the kind of like uniformed enemy, like, of the wretched and the poor, you know, or of the, or of the working classes.

You know, we can't become to be viewed as, um, this kind of like permanent, a cadre of strike breakers or something. So what he did was, in addition to that, in addition to this committee, that, you know, then, as I just mentioned, presented their findings in the form of his broad-based study

to the commons, he also drafted what came to be known as the Peeleian principles. It sounds like the rules one might have for like eating an orange or something, but it's not. The nine Pilean principles were one to prevent crime and disorder, and this is key, as an alternative to repression by military force, and as an alternative to recourse to increasingly severe punishment. So basically, you know, anything short of, you know, some kind of 1789 situation, you don't just send in the red coats, you know, to butt stroke and bayonet people. Nor do you start, you know, drawing and quartering people in the public square, like, you know, in the days of, you know, medieval rebellions or whatever. you know um the people need to view the police force as as working you know like with them you know towards uh accomplishing an equitable peace you know the second peelyan principle um was that the power

of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is absolutely dependent on public approval of their resistance, their actions and behavior in the course of affecting custodial arrests, but also like an approval of their mandate. You know, there's got to be, there's got to be some sort of, you know, direct connection between, you know, these constituencies and how they're represented in the commons and who represents them, you know, and an ability of those representatives, like, directly impact, you know, what, what, you know, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, as well as, as well as the kind of brass tax of, of how policing is conducted, you know, um, there's got to be some kind of formal accountability, you know, um, to recognize always the extent to which cooperation of the public, must be secured and how this diminishes in proportionate in terms the necessity of the use of physical force. And this is why traditionally, like, British police don't pack heat.

Okay. It's not because the British are naive. It's not because they got a culture that wasn't steeped in violence. Nor is it like in old movies where, you know, there's some that the British kind of don't know what the hell to do if somebody shows it with a gun like look actually until recently firearms are pretty ubiquitous in the UK and until the later 80s you could procure a weapon as a private person without a whole lot of hassle the British send in the army if they need to kill somebody okay or if they need to like raid the hood and um do like a bulls-on parade thing and and like break heads

the whole point of like the the Peeleian and police is that they don't do that you know You don't send a diplomatic element and to negotiate with a gun on his hip. That's the ethos, and this is key. And that's kind of like where America parted ways with the Peeleian concept. And we'll get into why that is. Probably not until part two, though.

But number five, of the Peeleian principles to seek and preserve public favor and partial service to law, independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice, the substance of those laws,

but without pandering the public opinion. And, you know, in the UK and historically, you know how like in Robin Hood, like the big villain is the sheriff of Nottingham, like a sheriff,

didn't used to be like a local policeman, but he did basically have like the executive power of the county with, you know, that, that, like, concentrated in his office. And there's a big concern that these rules can't become politicized if you're talking about, you know, the ability to affect the Stodial arrest and hail people into court, you know, by way of like a permanent constabulary. Like, there had to be some kind of accountability, but it couldn't become just like another political office.

You know, and that's, I stipulated in the early days. The UK did a pretty good job of this, even if it's, you know, something that's not, that they can't really be sustained. You know, and in the absence, as we saw with Mr. Trump, regardless of how anybody feels about Trump the man, you know, you've got a perfect example in the FBI where it's like, you have a law enforcement agency,

which is power. whose mandate disappeared decades ago. It's like what, so what do they become? Like, they basically become this, um, they become this kind of like hatchet for hire, for, um,

entrenched political interests. And that's, that's highly corrupting. And, you know, aside from the fact that it's, um, it's, it's an unconscionable that, you know, the taxpayer is expected to,

you know, continue to fund this apparatus. Um, it's, there really is a there really is a deleterious influence of a police organization that has become

especially owing to the evaporation of its mandate has become really nothing more than a a cipher for you know for political right for political capture

um the six Peeleyan principle is to use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient. And again, too, I've noticed a lot of people, and, like, a fair amount of flatfoot's, like, follow my content. I mean, which is fine. I was kind of surprised, excuse me, to discover that.

But I hear police a lot, you know, talk about how, like, well, you know, the British policing is broke as fuck they you know they they they they they're too a burst of force and maybe they are i'm not i'm not like weighing in on that in absolute terms but it's something that precludes the kind of current totally dysfunctional kind of culture of policing like post um floyd um post the political theater you know post political theater promised on on the floyd incident this goes back to literally in inception and

that's one of the reasons why Operation Banner played out the way that it did you know and we'll get into some of that I don't want to turn this into a discussion about the troubles because it's outside the scope but

there are aspects that are relevant to the discussion but you know my my point is people who view you know, participate, I mean, there's a gobbling going on here, and I don't want to I don't want to get into the topic here. Not because I'm a burst of the topic, although it's quite unpleasant, but because it's outside the scope.

Discussion of the grooming gangs and sexual assault of vulnerable people, particularly young girls and kids. On the many nights of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee Christmas nights at gravity. This Christmas, enjoy a truly unique night out at the Gravity Bar. favour festive bites from Big Fan Bell, expertly crafted seasonal cocktails and dance the night away with DJs

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Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person.

So together, we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest. By these hostile, like, alien elements, the reason why that's happening owes to negatively put it. factors of, you know, the post-Norneberg era. That doesn't owe to, like, the British police being, you know, unreasonably a burst of force or something. But instances where there is on display of comparative reluctance, you know, to apply

deadly force, or to go in heavy as people think of it in terms of police work. you know, in applying less lethal measures, that that's a different thing. And it precedes, you know, the current era and it's ideological, chivalrous and things. The last few are kind of brass text stuff. The last few of the Pillar principles, way to accountability. but the key one is to is quote

to maintain at all times a relationship with the public because reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police. Community policing that phraseology as well as the ethos that underlies it as a direct

import from the United Kingdom and it's essential like regardless of how you fall on the matter of what kinds of good policing or what that's not important. I mean, it's important, but I mean, for purposes of this particular aspect of the discussion, there does need to be like a communitarian aspect to the police, otherwise it's not workable. And honestly, that is the future as the process that we talked about at the top of the hour,

you know, kind of emerges in earnest. and policing becomes truly a localized function once again. That's essential to local sovereignty and essentially the maintenance of anything approaching law and order. And I made the point again and again, you're going to see moving forward. I mean, I realize I'm dating myself with this reference, but I do not foresee like a Thomas Chittam Civil War II scenario that people would band in the early 90s. I think Shadam's a great guy. And for context, he was writing about this stuff in the wake of things like the L.A. riots where like some kind of open to Ross and Krieg was really like in the running, which is terrible.

I do not see that happening at scale. What is happening, I mean, it's already underway, is the kind of secession of discrete communities. some which are deliberate communities, some of which have just kind of ossified around common cultural imperatives and identitarian signifiers, just like owing to accident of, you know, historical developments and sociological realities. But as communities kind of become more and more self-contained, you know, like we've talked about before, There's going to be even greater and more layered complex interdependence of an economic and financial nature.

But politically, people are seceding. You know, you're going to see communities that are like 99.9% black, that are like 99.9% white. You know, that are like the same as for Raza or for like Asian people or other. And similarly, there's going to be communities that, oh, and either ideological, commitment or inability or unwillingness to establish, you know, a deliberate living pattern at relative scale, you know, there are going to be like mixed race communities that, you know, maybe, or maybe even, you know, community stuff that are situated in the aforementioned, according to the aforementioned criteria, like going to something like vestigial attachment

to American civic myths. but regardless like any policing element is going to be a reflection in that community you're not going to have like white or Spanish guys going to police who live 50 miles away like commuting into some black hood to police and like vice versa like that's done that's dead you know it's not

the liabilities attendant to police work are just going to kind of force those sorts of developments but also people aren't going to be willing to do the job anymore from a position of communitarian alienage. Okay. But also, again, you know, like, what was the purpose appeals model for policing, which in turn also had strong relevance here? you know again owing to

the basic social divisions which characterized both societies what kind of derailed that really was uh really was kind of like the collapse of the cities as loci

as like worker bearish the national economy it was the Cold War it was you know um the earliest uh birth pangs of globalism when they really when they literally were like two systems competing

for global hegemony that's really what underlay the war on drugs like i watched the film drugstore cowboy the other day which is actually a really good film i really like that movie it's got kelly lynch it's got um james remor it's got mad dillan it's got way of his burrows and this weird cameo but it's kind of a it's very much kind of a black comedy but it's also been treatment of like narcotic addiction. And it's also kind of like a, you know, like a crime of movie. But Burroughs plays this heroin and morphine addicted priest. It's kind of like the grand old man of this community of addicts that's perpetually

ripping and running. And he talks about the settings around 1973 and he's talking about you know i i foresee a global police aid apparatus premised on the moral panic over use of narcotics and yeah there was an aspect to that but the war on drugs is peak like cold war thing okay and everything else aside it totally and completely changed policing it changed the way It changed what's considered evidence. It changed the way we can sexualize a criminal offense. It changed the way the police view the community that they are charged with regulating and vice versa.

It changed people's attitude towards violence. And when the police have a defensible mandate to apply it, I mean, it made the roll something other than what it had been there to for it was that much of a a categorical paradigm shift okay and the war on drugs is coming to an end too which is really really interesting and very important you know especially considering the degree to which you know, many aspects of the public health crisis are being driven by addiction to obvious. But we're coming up on the hours. I want to stop now. I'm sorry to be a party pooper, but if I change gears now, like, I'll have to stop, like, in the middle of a...

a what I think is an important point and I don't want to do that. Then I will hold my questions until the next time. I was taking so much. How many way do you prefer? We can do them now if you want or we can wait. Well, let me let me just throw one in there. Yeah, man. It seems like in the United States, policing was taken over by the Irish.

How did that happen? A few different ways, at least in Chicago. Boston's a bit different. In Chicago, and they get into this and upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which is a great book, like even if you don't accept Sinclair's

views on political economy and historical processes and things. But when the jungle opens up... On the many nights of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee,

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Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid. is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable,

sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4.Northwest. There's still like a vestigeal like German-American kind of civic elite in Chicago you know but they're slipping

um basically the first unions were Irish immigrants and the first mob here was Irish you know the Capone gang like went to war basically

with like with the Irish you know that I mean yeah it was the north side and the south so I truly are different and there wasn't some like ridges

homogeneity between the gangs, but it was basically like, you know, Capone's Italians, like going to war with the Irish, okay? So the Irish were running the street and the Irish, and, you know, the Irish were running the, the, the, the, the labor unions. So by consequence, you know, you had to give the, you had to give the Irish the police department if you wanted to be able to regulate both of those things you know and then from there like the irish here they were able to capture um they were able to capture the uh the civic apparatus for you know like 70 years um the irish are i'm not i'm not like trashing the irish i mean

depending on how you define things like i am irish you know like i don't really see what that way because I think if you're not Roman Catholic, you're not really a patty. But my point is, I mean, that's one of the reason I make fun of them so much, just because it's kind of like an in-house rivalry. But I'm not banishing the Irish when I say this, but they are conspiratorial people, very tribal, very, very in-group focused, very prone to intrigues, okay? and the best way under the national economic schema, you know, that existed in earnest from the 1870s until, you know, really until the Kennedy era, you know, that that was how you captured clout, you know, in the cities.

so that that's how um i knew uh the guy i don't want to name drop him because i i think he's retired now i mean i as i think about this either day it's like i'm getting so cold but uh i went to law school and i became buddies with um like where i went to law school this guy named corboy he's this big shot like king of torts type lawyer he founded this scholarship at john marshall Chicago where like any chicago policeman or woman can like get a fly ride if they can like get into john marshall so i got to know like some of these flat foots including the guy he went on to become a hansche with a fraternal over a police and i got to know pretty well because like he'd drive me home i mean we we had class in the weekends we were both

going to law school at night he was working as a he was working as a cop then he worked the west side you know i was i was working a couple different jobs including at this gym and edgewater but so he'd go to class at night and then on saturday day morning we had like lawyering skills. It was basically legal writing. And he'd meet me at the Skokie Swift

Health Station and then we'd drive to the loop and then after class he'd drive me back to Skokie Swift and then I'd go home to Evanston. He's like I got to know him like pretty well and he was the third generation cop. His brother was a cop

his dad was a cop his grandfather been a cop you know and it's it was interesting and um and he married a lady who was very nice and he'd met her at ISU

where a lot of cops used to go to college I don't know about today but their police science program was kind of a feeder system for Chicago PDD but he married a lady and like her dad was a cop you know what I was all they is

but um my point being like uh i i got some insight uh because i'm like a north shore guy and so i there was plenty of irish around like where i grew up but you know they were they were they were the kinds of guys who become policemen you know like uh they're the kinds of guys who were like lawyers and stuff and like accountants like their dads i mean you know um the prosper serious that's not something kind of like flex and like my family because like my dad my dad's like a fucking genius but he's like he's like he's like this academic guy and basically like a game theory guy we were kind of like we were we were like the poor people I'm sure and like you guys had been you know you did you're the smartest guy I know like how come me you know he's like

don't do what he knows you won't make any money you know it's like fuck you like I want your opinion but um yeah that was that was kind of a tangent man sorry about that and like forget my being sick, man, but I still got some congestion. Forgive me. I realize I don't sound well, so forgive me for it. No problem. Uh, drop some plugs and I'll end this. You'll end it all. That stuck me as funny as sorry. I'm trying to be a cop. Um, you can always find me. The best place to find me is on substack. I'm on hiatus from the pot until the first week in February, but there's other good stuff that's popping up there. And I promise season three of the pod is going to be lit and tremendous.

It's Real Thomas 777.7.7.com. My website is kind of a one-stop location for a bunch of my content. It's number 7-H-O-M-A-S-777.com. I'm on social media

at capital R-E-A-L underscore number 7-A-A-A-A-A. H-O-M-A-S-7-7. I want Instagram, I want Telegram. But yeah, there's big things on the horizon. And I think the subs will very much appreciate and approve of these things.

And I want to give, since you, I want to thank everybody for supporting the brand. People have really, we've gotten like a glut of new subscribers lately. It's just great. You know, and your support makes this possible. I cannot thank you enough. And in a week, I'm going to the inauguration

and a bunch of the fellows and girls are going to be out there. I'm going to stream from out there. And I'm going to try and capture some worthwhile footage and B-roll. So there's that to look forward to also. But that's what I got. All right, man. Until the next time.

Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekina show. Thomas. Hey, part two of the police series. How you doing, man? I doing well. Thank you, man. Yeah, I think it was pretty...

Part one seemed to be pretty well received. People, I guess some of the subs were confused that the whole thing wasn't on YouTube. I don't know why. It was like in the description and said it was just like a preview. But... Let me address that real quick in the beginning of this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the videos are not going to be on YouTube, Brumble,

bit shoot anymore. You get a preview. If you decide it's something you want to watch, you can go over to one of the podcast apps and listen to it. Yeah, just not put out video anymore. No, no, that makes perfect sense, man. And yeah, like, I didn't think it was confusing or anything.

That seems like a perfectly reasonable way to do it. So, yeah, that's great. If it's a particularly, if it's a subject that I think we need video for, I'll release said for subscribers yeah no that that that makes perfect sense man yeah no i i i um i wasn't confused by the whole thing but i a handful of people um hit me up about it so yeah thanks for um

thanks for um shouting that out i think uh i think uh i think we finished off last i'm talking about robert peel and like the peel principles and you know i emphasize that not to be pedantic or because I get excited about trivialities and historical record. But again, they agree to which policing really is a political phenomenon. It's not the second necessity whereby, oh, the police have always been here. You know, the police have existed for 40,000 years, like basically since man became like sentient. And if they go away, there's anarchy. That's not why you have a police department, you know.

the American model, the reason why there's not like, there's not like an American version or like the German order police that are like part of the National Guard or something is because there's a strange situation in the UK and in America. And for clarity to like, you know, Peele absolutely was the father, wasn't his the father of modern what's called like metropolitan policing. The first, the first true police department came from Scotland. That's like you're another thing

that like the Scottish came up with. Employers, rewarding your staff? Why choose between a shop voucher or a spend anywhere card

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awards. more rewarding, visit optionscar.com. I.E. today. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area, and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person, so together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more. at airgrid.i. 4.n. Northwest. Um, in, uh, in this, the city of Glasgow police were like the first, like, the first professional

police department. They were established by an act of parliament in 1800. Um, I knew that, but some of the, some of the skis, like, shuddered out. And I'm like, what the fuck? The first police were Scotland because. So there you go. Um, and Peel the London the London Metropolitan Police were created by the Peace

the Peace Preservation Act of 1814 and Peel essentially like drafted that in all but name. I don't know if he's credited as the primary author but yeah for context

at the turn of the 19th century London had It had 450 constables in service to the kings or queens bench And um 4,500 night watchman You know, and it was It wasn't within The contemplation that there'd be like a permanent professional police force

Until Peel's reforms and When he became home secretary, that's really when it began earnest. But the significance to us in this country, you know, everything kind of changed with the New Deal regime and subsequent. And, you know, one of the reasons

why, as people my age and old are remember, one of the reasons why it was a big deal when the media kind of turned on LAPD and, you know, when the Rodney King incident happened and then like the subsequent, you know, like race war came about. I'm not being shrill. I mean, that really was

a race war. You know, I think people kind of confuse William H. Parker with Daryl Gates. And I've noticed that, too, because a lot of these, it's fading, because, like, nobody takes a woke shit seriously anymore. But, um,

at that, at the peak of that garbage, like, I think around, like, 2015, 2016, there was a lot of these, uh, there was a handful, like, history of Los Angeles that made sound of a splash and kind of mainstream academe, which is very midwood stuff. But there was this big effort to kind of slander William H. Parker.

And I realized, because I'm like, why are these things like on Parker? And I'll get to why that's weird in a minute. But then I realized a lot of these people, like, think Parker and Gates are the same guy. You know, and Gates, I think Gates is kind of an ugly guy. Like, not for this, not for the reasons that a lot of left-wingers do. I, you know, I, I, um, I'll get into why I think that in a bit. But, but Parker, Parker was this big progressive. You know, he, um, and his, he's kind of like the American Robert Keel in some ways.

You know, because like policing before the 1950s, really, in America, it's, like, corruption was kind of taken for granted. Like, I mean, like, graft. Like, Bazy was understood, like, in any big sense. city you can like pay off the cops and get them off your back it was very ad hoc i think that until i think i think i think in the 1940s the city of miami had literally two sworn police officers you know and um even in cities where you had you know a more mobilized police force like chicago it didn't it didn't function the way like we think of it they were kind of like de facto like you know union busters

and strike breakers. You know, you kind of rely in police services that you could like pay them to show up, like, blowboard. You know, and it was not in gangs of New York, which I think is a really great film. Although, like, a lot of people trash it for reasons I don't quite understand.

But I like it for a lot of reasons. I mean, it's the only film that really deals with kind of the... What Black was like in big northern cities during the war between the States, but happy Jack you know the thug like the

the like the the policeman played by uh johnsy riley he was like out there thugging it like that was pretty realistic like by all accounts man like that's like what the police were like you know there was a um there was a show i can't remember if it was on amc

or history but it was uh it only did two seasons it was called copper uh huh and i've never heard of it but was it oh yeah yeah it was really good and it really it did a good job of showing

it would be late 1800s 1880s 1890s and it did a really good job of showing just exactly that the whole John C. Riley thing about how they were a lot of them were just thugs a lot of them grew up

thugs or they came back from the war and they had nothing else that they could do and they got thrown into into policing. Yeah, they were good at strong-arming people And they'd be And they were good with a handgun

Um Which at no day I mean today I'm still a terrible pistol shot But these days that's a lot easier to stay on target With a pistol than if you're using some old cold 40 like peacemaker You know like even I mean you know that you're a gun guy But

Um But yeah so that's You know that's basically what the police were It's not some That's not some progressive myth about you know the bad guy police or something. I mean, it's a fact. But it, but Parker, you know, all kinds of, in every sense in public policy, you know, I was making the point that sociology was a real discipline, like because of the Cold War and because of the managerial state. And Parker was one of

these guys, I'll get into his background in a minute, but in the 1950s and 60s, like big city police chiefs or in Chicago, police superintendents, as we call them, they weren't just, like career cops who, you know, had like the ear of the mirror. I mean, there was definitely some of that. But this idea of, you know, a cop needs to be some like college educated type with, with, you know, preferably with a kind of prestige degree, you know, which in those days was like a degree in sociology or economics or like urban planning or something. You know, like this was a big thing, you know, and that's one of the reasons why. Parker didn't like Hollywood but the reason why show

was like Dragnet were a big deal like they worked with LAPD and Parker cultivated that you know like an LA confidential how the guy played like Kevin Space even sends

he's like always wearing he's always wearing Italian suits and he's got like manicured fingernails and he's consulting with a guy who's supposed to be Jack Webb and Dragnet

like that was the real thing like the Hollywood L.A. cop who had him you know whose interface the media in a way that that is essential, kind of the public image.

You know, like, they have stuff all came from Parker. And, you know, that this was, the LAPD was held out as, like, the model police force. And if you read the kind of stuff Parker said, it was all, like, the peel principles. You know, it was like, we're a community-based police department. You know, like, we're not here, you know, just to arrest people and smack people up, you know, we're not just a bunch of strike breakers. He was like this big progressive who like was

who I mean that's why it's weird to try and present him as this kind of like Klansman type or something like because he wasn't at all. He was like this big progressive and his big thing was that like the the LA County sheriffs

they had a reputation as being kind of like very redneckish and very rough and this whole thing was like we're not like those guys you know Parker like he was into hiring blacks and like mestizo people you know to police their own hoods and stuff

like that was like his whole thing you know and like that people might be like oh that's just like police work but yeah that's why it's police work because of Parker and Parker was falling back on on this stuff from the UK because he was an educated

guy and like most of these guys you know he came up through the service during war or two like he'd been born in the Dakotas and found his way to give me one second my machines freaking out

there we go he was born in South Dakota and made his way in Deadwood which has like an auspicious heritage as regards law enforcement and stuff and then he

made his way to Southern California like a lot of like a lot of people did from that part of the country, including my paternal grandfather. His grandfather, William H. Parker was a war hero. He'd fought the Union Army

in the war between the states and later served in Congress. And Parker was a, he was very Catholic, which obviously was unusual in, in like Los Angeles at the time. which was kind of like a was it was kind of like a wasp breed out like literally like rich waspies people we'd kind of settle it and those people like their their descendants like still have a lot of

clout there you know um and and there was a lot of like oki's too you know who like working and poor like white folks but you know parker was kind of outside of that employers did you know you can now reward you and your staff with up to 1500 euro and gift cards annually completely tax-free and even better. You can spread it over five different occasions. Now's the perfect time to try OptionsCard. OptionsCard is Ireland's brand new multi-choice employee gift card packed with unique features that your staff will love. It's simple to buy, easy to manage, and best of all, there are no extra fees or hidden catches. Visit OptionsCard.I.E. Today. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade. We're planning to

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electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest. Culture, but he uh, he joined LAPD. on August 18th,

1927, he was going to law school. And the idea was that it was just kind of like put him through school and it was like something to do. And like, you know, well, during the course of his studies and said he could learn like, you know, stuff about public policy where they were ever met the road. In terms of functional application of a law, you know, like in an executive role at street level.

but um he decided uh after he passed the bar exam he decided uh he decided to stay on his early early on like he was a big advocate of like a police of the police union which at that time i think the the new york and chicaba fraternal or a police were already a thing but um like the idea of public sector unions i've done me wrong like police working in them days was a lot different than today and like those guys actually did need some kind of formal representation vis-to-vis the city council and stuff. It's not, it's not like

ridiculous bullshit, like I'm like a teacher's union, but you know, public sector unions weren't a thing. And back in those days in California, I think throughout the state, so that there was any kind of like cop representation in terms of

organized labor, it was generally like a police and firefighters' union. And, um, that was his primary role you know um he wasn't mostly a beat cop but he did he took leave to go fight in uh war two um and he was in uh he was in direct combat he got a purple heart for wounds um that he received in normandy and um he'd been in uh he'd been at the assault on sardinia and because of his background as a cop, they put him,

he was both on their role. It's kind of like a counterinsurgency planner, like in theater. He was responsible for POWs and stuff and detention, as well as, you know, kind of policing the ranks, post-occupation in Munich and stuff. That's a resume. I'm not trying to cast an ominous light on, um,

Parker, but that's a resume not unlike John Burge. Although Burge, I believe, was engaged in, in Phoenix Forum, that stuff and, uh,

for those that don't know, Burge was, he was a homicide police here in Chicago, very feared guy. His name rang out. And he, um,

he got indicted, like years after he retired from torturing suspects, procuring all these dubious confessions that were procured under duress. But, that agreed with the military during like the draft era, you know, and basically, you know, World War I through NAM. And the relationship of LAPD to the Vietnam War particularly is very interesting.

Joseph Womba gets into that. We'll talk a little about Wambaw. But during the World War II era, you know, like there was a glut of guys who had been in heavy action who became cops. Or guys like Parker who'd, you know, already been sworn to office or wasn't they left, you know, to leave, like, you know, to join the service or to be, you know, satisfy the draft obligation or whatever. But he got, he got the War Cross. I'm not even going to try and pronounce it. The Croix de Gaia, I think, is what it's called. It's basically

The French equivalent of the War of Married Cross Maintaining order in the liberation of Paris But out of the war he shot through the ranks Became one of the One of the deputy chiefs And by 1950 He was

By the year 1950 Like he was a big shot And he He's responsible for not just cleaning up graft At street level But you know kind of a insinuating LAPD from like war to politics. There's one of the reasons too why like mafia guys in the traditional sense,

like couldn't really get a toehold in California. You know, like I'm sorry to keep citing a Hollywood movie as authoritative, but it draws upon real stuff. And some people are familiar with, you know, like an L.A. confidential, there's a scene where like Dudley, like Bud White,

who's like his enforcer, you know, he's like a goon police. Like they, they get worried that these, like, East Coast mob guys are in Los Angeles for some reason. So, like, Dudleek has

White Nagoon squad, like, Shanghai, these dudes and, like, take him to, you know, take him to some interrogation location and, like, beat the fuck out of them. And then they literally, like, put these guys, like, back on a train going back east. Like, all, like, broken up

and bang up and battered. Like, LAPD did stuff like that. And that's one of the reasons LA was always an open territory. Like, it's not just because the LAPD would literally fuck your world up. You know, if you were an outsider trying to set up rackets there. But there really wasn't, there wasn't like any ward boss. You could go visit in L.A. You know, who it did, you know, who people just be like, hey, I'm so and so, you know, and my guy vouched for me, like, let's do business. And I mean, you have, like, you don't have, you don't have, just like, you don't know the same hood structure in LA, man.

I mean, yeah, it's like, like East LA is Spanish, traditionally South Central is black. You know, and then you got like Oki and white hoods. But it's not like Chicago and New York. It's not like there's like this like war system where, you know, you, we're like bosses from the ground up. It's like how you got stuff done. So, you know, Parker kind of, yeah, it's like, okay, any man in the air has, work cut out for him, but, you know, it's, um, it's important to distinguish that Los Angeles was kind of fertile ground for a lot of this stuff and a lot of this kind of

social policy experimentation. Um, that's not to see if it's a tabular rasa, but it's not only that's one reason too, like, I mean, because we just did our California series. This is one of the reasons why people are kind of able to project onto California, specifically Los Angeles, this kind of confabulated narrative of its political heritage, you know, like one way or the other. I try and shore up a mandate of an ideological nature. But, you know, one of Parker's big things, and Gates later ran with this, albeit for very different reasons. But Parker, Parker, romantic. reduced the size of LAPD.

And he actually militarized it in key ways. Not in terms of its ethos, but his whole thing was mobility. And, you know, again, like his formative experience at command level. And I believe the rank of commander as a police rank came about under Parker's tenure. But, you know, his experience, his form of experience had been in the the service like at the you know in the military and um that perspective shaped lAPD and you know that's what like air mobility by uh like the vietnam era was a huge thing with lapD too you know like they make use of shoppers uh in a way that no other police departments do i mean part of that's just

because the geography and the vastness of the territory they're responsible for but it's also a very military way of like staying on target or i don't know how the police what their nomenclature is for that i'm sure they call it something different that sounds less ominous or or direct action oriented but not not not not not to try to be funny but um mayor goody in philadelphia also used uh helicopters to change philadelphia do you do you remember that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no yeah that's a fair point um but the uh you know the so it's on the one hand so it's kind of like two competing tendencies like the posture of police deployment away from you know like uh like like police literally walking beats in uh the same neighborhoods

says that they're insinuated into the community to like rotating officers, you know, so they get like a citywide perspective and get used to kind of interfacing with, with every major population segment. And, you know, switching to police cars over foot patrols. That was a huge Parker thing because his old thing, too, was like, you know, and being able to swarm, you know, being, you know, being. being able to swarm units to reinforce officers in trouble or to respond to the overwhelming force like that was a that was a parker innovation and uh this stuff uh speaking of wamba i highly recommend

anything wamba has written but uh the onion field which is a horrible story um these two lEPD uh plane closed cops were were kidnapped and And one of them was murdered. The other guys survived. And the way he was treated was horrible. But, you know, in those days, like, there wasn't, you know, police radios were tied to the vehicle that they were driving. And obviously, there wasn't the same kind of modern telecom. And if somebody got the drop on you in those days and previous.

if you were told, like, surrender your weapon, you were, like, police were told they should comply. Like, subsequently, and this was a Parker innovation, he said, like, never, ever surrender your service weapon. You know, like, basically, you should die before you ever give up your weapon. You know, and the police just adopted, like, a more military mindset and, like, across the board.

But at the same time, though, you know, like I said, like Parker was very much part of that socialized. progressively progressive, academically polished class of kind of bureaucrats who represented the face 20th century policing. And interestingly, Gene Roddenberry served with LAPD. He's like the Star Trek guy. I think Star Trek is goofy.

I'm not a fan of it. But the original series is very much kind of a time capsule of like the Kennedy 60s, Kennedy era 60s. I realize it endured beyond that. But Captain Kirk is based on William H. Parker. Like literally, like, Ronbury said that. And, like, he knew the guy. You know, and he's like, that's like,

that's like, like, this guy who's like this man of action. But he's also, like, Mr. Co., you know, he's always, like, citing Abraham Lincoln and the Constitution. And he's like, he's like, Mr. like appealed illegal authority. And we do everything by the book. He's supposed to be William H. Parker. Okay. And that's also why, like, he's got, like, a multiracial crew and he's got, he's got, he's got the Russian guy on deck.

He's got, like, the effeminate Asian guy. He's got, like, the black woman who's, like, his telecom officer. Like, this wasn't just, this wasn't just tokenism on television. I mean, yeah, that was part of it, but that was very deliberate. Like, this is, this is William H. Parker's police department in space, you know, which I think is interesting. thing. But the idea of the kind of stuff

I'm talking about. And Wambor wrote directly about this. He wrote about this in the Onion Field. And he mentioned this later in his life. It's an ongoing example of kind of the weirdness of the 60s

and kind of the new the kind of newfangled progressivism of it. It was something going to be called colloquially the cloakially the blazer experiment as in a blazer like a sports jacket. And this town called Menlo Park in California, they hired this police chief named Victor Cizancas. Cizancas, I think. I'm butchering that name, forgive me.

But his Melo Park was added, they say they had a troubled community, the city had troubled community relations, the police department, I mean, would be a gross understatement, okay? I mean, this was 1968. That's kind of nationwide

that these issues were emergent, but it was particularly pronounced in Menlo Park, okay? they've been hit particularly hard by the 1960s. It's located just south of San Francisco, so they caught a lot of the same shit that the Bay Area proper did.

You know, a lot of like, a lot of, a lot of cultivated student radicalism. You know, when I say cultivated, I mean, you know, the usual suspects, NGOs and things to do what they can to provoke and orchestrate kind of thing. But also it's just like real like real just like organic difficulties between the races. You know, as unfortunately is, you know. Employers, did you know, you can now reward you and your staff with up to 1500 euro and gift cards annually completely tax-free and even better. You can spread

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So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4.4. Northwest. Southern California is associated with North and South. The Menlo Park Coppers, their reputation as being kind of a kick-ass police department. and during racial incidents or or anti-war protests that got out of the hand like the police would go in and kick a lot of ass, okay? And this caused

this this caused real problems. All right. So, Cisnakus or Cizancas, sorry, Cizancas, he's brought in and he's got this kind of like radical orientation about policing. And it was called the Blazer Experiment

because he did away with police uniforms. He's like, from now on, he's like, we're not, we're not going to wear some paramilitary uniform with a Sam Brown belt and like a, you know, like a piece on your hip. We're not going to do that anymore. So these Menlo Park police, they started going around wearing like khaki pants

and these green blazers. So they look like guys, like worked at a country club or something. And there's like this little like city crest on, on like the breast pocket. Like you can like Google this and it's ridiculous. And your weapon, your service weapon was always supposed to be out of view.

Okay. Either by way of a shoulder holster or, you know, discreetly squirled away like an ankle holster. You know, because no one's never supposed to see it. You know, there's this whole litany of

kind of rules for how you're supposed to instigate like basically a Terry stop and like even if you have to stop and frisk somebody because they're obviously strapped or because they're up to you know

or because like your police instincts or however they characterize it in those days tells you that you know um your spiky senses tell you something you don't like about this suspect so frisk him and figure out the probable cause later you're supposed to always initiate those contacts by you know by asking somebody if they if they have consent you know shit like that which is fucking stupid okay um

and it was it was stupid today it was stupid back then and like a lot of this crap is coming back back. But these days it's, in combination with various other factors, you know, like policing as it's existed, it's coming to an end. Okay. And so it's kind of interesting to me, like in 1968, the P.L model of police work at far from exhausted itself, obviously. But it's interesting on some of this stuff is kind of coming back as if it's an issue of. first impression as people scramble it kind of trying salvage this this obsolete model but um you know this caused uh this caused a lot of consternation among the ranks of police departments because obviously there was these like like a lot of progressive types you know including uh

susancus's fans they thought like this was great but you know what cops who were who were dealing dealing with, um, burgeoning anarchy and real violence, you know, in, in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Boston,

in Philly, in New York City. You know, being a cop was a dangerous job then. And, you know, you, you very much were outgunned.

You know, you very much, um, you were in jeopardy then in a way you're not today. You know, um, I realized there's cops in,

God-persaken places that are, in fact, under fire a lot. And they don't have the kind of forces in being or the firepower to really be confident, you know, if they get moved on. But that's the exception, not the rule. Like in the 1960s, that was the rule, not the exception. Okay. Part of the police department was kind of the exception, because they had all that stuff.

But, you know, like, very, very, very kind of rapidly, this, the blazer experiment, like, people realize, like, this is just not, this is not something that's going to work. And, uh, but what did, uh, what, what did linger, though, is, um, you know, the, like, like, career-minded officers coming. from the more academically rigorous backgrounds. That's something that endured really until like the early 80s. And then by then, like that was

done. You know, um, for a lot of reasons. Part of it was a trickle-down effect of of, uh, of military industrial imperatives. I mean, I know that makes me sound like some Chomsky. I don't mean it in the same way that people

like he and Zach lights do, but it is a fact. But, um, one of the one of the many kind of kind of kind of comic things about the blazer experiments um

the the organizational lingo of the police department was changed um sergeants became managers and police lieutenants in menlo were called directors like it I mean it's it's a comical

bullshit that's got like the kind like there was some of that I don't like the Vietnam era military like in the Polga and the pog rinks but it's just you know a very strange era man but this

but by the early 70s all this kind of stuff it kind of fallen out of favor even you know even among

kind of the most ardent you know polemicists of in favor of you know police refre forum, which in their view would kind of constitute a stripping of the ability of big city police to, you know, to meet, to meet threats with first.

You know, this is like little remembered today, and it's remarkable the kind of short memory people have. And I think about this a lot, especially when there's, when the regime tries to insinuate propaganda about, you know, domestic terrorism into, into policy discussions. You know, during the early 1970s, there was, there was constant, genuine, like, domestic terrorist incidents, you know, coast to coast. Nixon and Jager Hoover, who, you know, even in the best of times, had a very contentious and not at all friendly relationship, to say the least. This became such a concern that Nixon, during June 1970,

Nixon hailed Hoover into the Oval Office. And he said to know in certain terms that, quote, Revolutionary Terror was the greatest single threat to like civil order um in america at the time and that wasn't that wasn't iperbole you know there was um like the weathermen were going nuts uh there was a half a dozen other uh you know self-declared you know like Maoist revolutionary groupings that were dropping bodies and and and pulling off IED attacks. You know, there were,

um, the Patty Hurst incident is almost so strange. Like, that seems like something that, like, like, of a Hollywood screenwriter had, like, written the Patty Hurst SLA situation into some script. Like, people would have laughed at it saying there's no way that could possibly happen. But I mean, but,

but, but it happened. You know, you had, um, a lot of, um, hijacking, a lot of hijacking a lot of planes too. It became the norm. Yeah, it became something that was as common as, like, armed robbery. And, yeah, and the, um, the zebra killings, you know, which were, uh, which were, which were, which were, horrifying, you know, and that was, like, part of it was a deliberate suppression of, uh, of reporting on, on, uh, on, uh, racially driven violence. So as the, you know, preclude escalation and the kindling effect as it were

but part of it was also like the zebra killings people don't know about them it was this offshoot of the 5% or faction of the N.O.I who called themselves death angels they went on this rampage of just random

torture murders of white people in the Bay Area this Black Friday game stream and go full speed with one gig Sky Broadband and watch unmissible shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people, killing you, Chad. And Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell

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for more infoosies sky.a slash speeds. Airgrid. Operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash Northwest. And the police code for these incidents with Zebra.

It's ironically accidental that, you know, the implication of Zebra is relating to black and white striping or whatever. But that was going on at the same time. The Zodiac killer was bodying people and taunting the cops. So it's kind of overshadowed, but this is a real thing. You know, um, And it, there were, throughout the 70s, there was, there was hundreds of these incidents every year, you know, if not thousands, right and small. The, I mean, in downtown New York, even this got, this, this whole kind of era got kicked off.

The summer of 69, this, this, this commie radical named Sam Melville. him and his cadre, they bombed something like a dozen buildings. Like in downtown Manhattan, you know, from the summer of 69 until like that in November. And then like it's the 70s. As 1996-19-1970,

it only snowballed. You know, I mean, so it was kind of fertile ground for, uh, Yeah, by 1972, incredible as it is, and I mean, back in these days, FBI statistics were substantially more reliable than a day. In 19972, there was 2,500 politically motivated bombings or IED attacks on American soil. That comes out to five a day. Okay.

Excuse me, this is totally insane. but that that's that's what lay the groundwork for kind of 1980s policing um which truly is when things truly became paramilitarized you know and and darrell gates was the standard bearer of that you know and gates is most remembered um i mean i gates was because I spent so much time in LA as a kid, and Gates was an intimidating guy. You know, like I, and he seemed, he seemed to parameditary. You know, like a lot of big city cops either seemed, they seemed kind of like, either like Keystone cop, bureaucrats, you know, like goofs, or they seemed just kind of like

politicians. Like Gates, like, seemed like a bad dude, you know, and he'd, uh, LAPD. you'd see them uh you know the l-a pd they didn't wear ties they'd wear those like uh they'd wear those like um v neck like buttoned down shirts like a best um they looked like super modern and and they were all a bunch of like in the 80s they were all a bunch of like buffed out like tough looking guys you know um i was used i was used to like chicago cops look like goons and they've always come heavy but they like chiccops in the era kind of look like fat ass like mob guys or something I mean, you know, so like in LA as a kid, I was always kind of tripped out by Daryl Gates and OAPD.

But, you know, what Gates is most kind of known for is stuff like the Crash Program, which began prior to Gates's tenure. But, you know, the movie Colors, like, was about Crash, which is an acronym for community resources against street hooligans. it uh it originally was called trash total resources against street hooligans and i obviously that references like we're like the garbage man because we're taking out the fucking trash and uh la bidi realized like when that would public well this this isn't like great PR but um you know gage also was the father of swat he devised swat which initially was special weapons assault team you know, then we get special weapons and tactics. But Gates divides that during Parker's tenure.

You know, and that was actually very forward-looking. Like, one of the reasons why, one of a million reasons why the FBI is, like, his head up his ass, you know, how, like, their direct action capability is still the hostage rescue team. And their operational paradigm, like, until very recently was that treat everything as if it's a hostage situation which makes which makes no sense whatsoever um like gage's swat model was that i mean he had he proceeded uh he he proceeded kind of like a lot of the a lot of the military types who were dynamically and progressive minded of the day in tactical terms i mean not political terms you know who were around um like the special operations forces community you know and in those days i was before

there was an integrated command or anything. And it was hard to get anything done. So I get into individual commands. It kind of made or broke everything was, you know, who was in a leadership role. But for better or worse, LAPD SWAT, you know, they were very dynamic. You know, and there was a kind of a full repertoire of force responses

that they trained for, you know, and they were very serious guys. But crash, and which culminated, it in Operation Hammer, which the opening of the movie, Cullors, which I think Cullors is a fucking great movie. But the opening scene where LAPD, they just like swarmed the city and they basically, like, they basically throw bracelets on like every known gang member or like everybody or like every or every like military age male like flying colors.

And they like throw them in the county jail, you know, to kind of get an, idea like not like not just uh like send it to literally lay the hammer down and say like l-epd runs the street but uh they wanted to get an under they wanted they wanted to also like get these guys government names all in the system but they also wanted to get an idea like forest levels that like major sets had you know cribs bloods 18th street um you know all those uh all all those mobs in in in south central and east l-a but um it was but that was

sure the end of like community-based policing it's like okay we got the spherpunkth of our force that's crash you know every every police I think there's 18 police districts in Los Angeles and every district had a crash unit

like a sign to it but crash had like citywide jurisdiction like a lot of these guys had been actively gang banging like before they, you know, went to the police academy. LAPD knew that. And they did, like, vet these guys somewhat. But obviously came and, you know, they ran into problems.

One of the things that blew the fucking lit off of a rampart scandal is, like, one of those dudes who was affiliated with death row records was like one of their security operatives. He was an, he was an active LAPD cop. He got into a shootout with some other off-duty cop over like this, over some traffic bullshit. it. And dude died. Like, whoever he was throwing shots at, like, you know, return fire and killed him. And a dude calls it in, you know, the other

off-duty cops. Like, yeah, like, you know, I just killed this guy. You, like, you know, started squeezing rounds off. Like, lo and behold, I found out this guy's a cop. He, like, works for death row. He's clicked up with, you know, the same set that, like, Shug Knight and all them guys were. But that, but that came up.

about, like, LAPD tried to play it off, like, well, this guy was some bad apple who stood through the cracks, you know, and unfortunately, a lot of young guys from South Central, you know, are insinuated into that life and are thugging it. No, that's not what happened, man. Like, the old thing with crash was that a lot of the guys were on record. Like, a lot of their officers were on record with, like, different mobs. That's one of the reasons why they were feared, you know. but that that's one of the reasons too interestingly also

you know like Compton Police Department no longer exists and they were like a heavy squad man like they were very tough but they they were kind of like a microcosm of you know this

they had their own culture because and I mean they were you know they were their own police department but they I think now Compton's police by L.A County Sheriff us. Like, the SoCal fellas will correct me, but I think that's what his jurisdiction. But they, it was like the same institutional sensibility in Compton, like in a scaled down way.

But, like, Chicago was different. Like, Chicago was definitely like a thug police department and it still is in a lot of ways. But, like, they did stuff differently. You know, and it was like the big, the kind of sharepunkth of Chicago police was like the Red Squad, which endured until the 80s. You know, um, but they, uh, it was just different, but the, it, uh,

and less like overtly paramilitary. I guess that's like part of it. Like Chicago PD, the era is kind of like a newie thief. This Black Friday game stream and go full speed with one gig Sky broadband and watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people killing you, John. And Ballad of

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Like the way those guys, their relationship to the outfit and kind of just like the way they do things, it's like it's like low key, whatever presence. you know, it was a different kind of sensibility, but, you know, that was the big thing, my big memory of Gates, you know, like I said, growing up when I'd be in SoCal, like, you know, Gates was on TV a lot and been like a lot of like kind of mainstream, like right-wing guys, like love Daryl Gates. There's even a video game. You remember, you remember Sierra Systems? There was those Kings Quest games. okay there was

Kings quest there was Space Quest well there was Darrell Gates police quest for like the F-O-2C and I remember like a friend of mine and like junior high he like gave me like a copy of it but let me borrow it or something and then yeah like Darrell Gates

was like the only police big city police you in America who had like a space in a freaking video game but uh but people there's a there's a bunch of like I remember fools like Morton Downey Jr. like love

Daryl Gates. But then the other side, you know, he was a, he was like this hate figure for for liberals and stuff. But I remember when poor Reginald Denny got moved on by them people in South Central, you know, it was that truck driver got pulled out of his, pulled out of his truck and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, skull fractures. There's a horrible case. Gates personally arrested, served a warrants on those suspects, and he was in, like, full riot gear. It seemed tasteless to me. It's like, okay, first of all, it's not a role appropriate for a fucking police chief. Like, secondly, it's like, you're using this poor guy's victimization as some flex. Like, get out of your man. It's,

it really run me the wrong way. You know, um, those are, those are very bad times, but, but gait some you know he also one of the things I emphasize to people about the about the O.J. Simpson case is that the state deserved to lose that case you're not just like entitled to a verdict

when you can't when you know when you can't account for the chain of custody of your evidence you know when you've got like literal clowns like like Chris Darden Mercia clerk heading up your prosecutorial team

but the whole like people also don't understand and some of the jurors attested to this you know mark firman is a total fucking weirdo like like a total weirdo and like it's not everybody's like oh people just acquitted oj because of racism that's not really what put people off about firman i mean yeah that didn't help any i'm sure some of those jurors were like ignorant people who were like oh he said the inward but the context of how those tapes came about were bizarre firmman was like a impulsive liar. He was a stolen valor case. He lied about being under fire and nom and like all this shit. The dude's a fucking psycho. That's the real issue with him. And it was pretty obvious. He and Van Adder, they basically framed a guilty guy because that's just like what they did.

And this is like what LAPD did. You show up on the scene. You decide how, you know, you can fabulate a narrative about how you came up upon the inculpatory evidence, then you kind of just like arrange it however you want. And that's like what you put on record as, you know, as to what becomes a case in chief. And I've had guys say to me, all police departments did that. I'm like, no, they didn't, man. Like, that's really nuts and really, and it's screwy. You know, that's a screwy way to do it. And unnecessary.

You know, like if they played that straight from, from, from, jump, they would have gotten their conviction. But I mean, everything about it was like goofy, man. And then, and then OJ, he's an armed man. He's wanted for multiple murder. He's traveling at a high rate of speed to the airport. If I do that, I get shot in the face immediately by like SWAT. OJ, they're like calling him on his cell phone, like politely asking him to turn himself in. So it's like on the one hand you're like framing a guilty guy. We don't need to. But then instead of like, throwing the bracelets on him when he's

when he's what he's when he's when he's wanted for double murder you're like calling him and asking him to come by like at the traffic tickets I mean this is real dysfunction you know like and it's and that's 110% the fault of the internal

um leadership cadre of LAPD it's not like goddamn liberals like ruining police order like they did a lot of this shit to themselves you know I have an uh and having a having dudes or like on record like with the Crips or whatever like actively gangb

like in LAPD and and it being like totally above board that they're gangbgers but it's okay because oh this is part of how we this is part of how we you know we maintain our our high level of police intelligence vis-a-vis or up for i mean that's that's totally insane and you can't you can't put that on like the enemies of law and order like that that came from inside of a TV man but um yeah we're coming up on the hour I think man let's

let's call it I'll do a part three on Joseph Wamba and if you want me to or if yeah that'd be great yeah we'll cover yeah we'll cover the onion field in Joseph Womba because I think that that's important stuff but yeah I also I mean there were

1980 and 1989 there were race riots in Miami I mean I lived in Miami for, you know, I live in South Florida because of police shootings and things. It was, I mean, these were precursors to the to what happened in L.A.

And they were bad. Overtown riots in 89. I was, I was down there for that. And no, that was no, I remember it was, it was, it was scary shit. Oh, it was fucking combat. It was open combat in the streets. It was open combat in the fucking streets. Yeah.

And Miami, too, because of cartel shit, and other stuff. There was a ton of fucking hardware on the street in Miami, man. Like everybody was like arm of the teeth. I mean, dudes like shooting it out. With like selective fire weapons.

Like literally. Mac10s were like 200 bucks. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. No, Miami's no joke, man.

And especially then. Yeah, you've been all over the south, man. Like, that's fascinating. But, yeah, South Florida, South Florida back in the 80s Cocaine Cowboys, it was bodies dropping everywhere, everywhere.

It was like, yeah, it was like low intensity and sometimes not the low intensity warfare, man. No, Miami-Dade police department was a serious police department too, man. Like, yeah, no doubt. No, that's fascinating stuff, man.

Florida is a fancying state, man. and people like throw shade on it, you know, like Florida man. And it's become like a meme. I mean, and it's got kind of a crazy history. Going back to something like the Black Seminoles, like you realize the Black Seminoles, it was like, it was like outlaw white dudes on the run. It was like runaway slaves, like Indian Braves who had been like cast out of their tribe, whatever, who like became this kind of like Mad Max sort of mob.

That's what the Black Seminoles were. It was like this part of the tribe. Florida has always been insane. I mean, they never surrendered in the war. And, like, they... No. And D.C. was like, oh, we don't care. We're fucking leave them.

Yeah. No, it's an insane place. And yeah, yeah. No, it's wild. But yeah, no, we'll do a part three then on Womba, and specifically the Onion Field and some of his other stuff. And we'll get into, like, the Vietnam War and the LAPD culture, because they're inextricably bound up.

But no, this was, I'm going, um, I'm going to the inauguration in D.C. on Saturday, but I'll, but I'll only be gone a few days, like back on the 22nd. But if you're going to bang another one out before we go. Or if you want to do like movie night, we could do that too. Or if you want to wait until I get back, that's fine. But, okay. Well, yeah, we'll talk, we'll talk about it. I'll, I'll text you later. Um, do quick plugs and we'll get out here. I got to go do an OGC meeting. Yeah, yes, sir. Um, yeah, best ways to find me is on substack. We'll launch it. season three of the pod in February, but there's all kinds of good stuff there, including a pretty active chat. It's real Thomas 777.substack.com. I'm on social media at capital

R-E-A-L underscore number seven, HMAS, 7777. I'm on Instagram. I'm on T-gram. You can find me on my website, Thomas-777.com. It's at number seven. and move a T, H-O-M-A-S-777.com. That's all I got. All right. Thank you. Let's try and record something before you leave, but if not, have fun. Yeah, no, we will, man.

Thank you, Woody. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Thomas, let's finish out this police series. What do you want to talk about today? I think Joseph Womba is on the menu. Yeah, I marked out Joseph Wombo for a dedicated episode because I think he's important. I, he wasn't, he's still alive, I think he's got to be very elderly now.

Well, he's got to be around 90. He was very much a documentary, though, of the period in which we're talking about when it was in, when police, modern policing was very much in transition. And when arguably he was at kind of a zenith. This Black Friday game stream and go full speed with one gig sky broadband. and watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people killing you, John. And Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell on Netflix.

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Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash Northwest. 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 pittsburg he was german irish and his dad was a policeman out there but wamba he joined l-apd when he got out of the marine corps as a young guy and i think he

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 Fidi for reasons.

I'll get into sometimes. 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 L.A. 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 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 Centurions, 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 night 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 like from the police department to write and then he wrote the choir boys which is like

this kind of savage takedown of LEPD, you know, like people compare 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, that 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, um, 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, uh, Wamba was a, was a police when this incident happened.

And, uh, I'll get into the details of it in a minute. But it, uh, 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 he 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 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 for 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 art. It was around simple times. Especially 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. Like 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, of, of the. these kinds of lefty progressives was, oh, well, Roe v. Wade meant that 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, you know, there were many population booms, owing to immigration and only to other things, particularly like localized. And this hasn't like duplication. And this hasn't like duplication. Like, it doesn't make any sense. It's, it's, 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, like, even more so in the Kitty Genovese incident, which is, 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 caught. 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 murdered 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 had like shoot it out with the police. But it's like straight up and cold blood like murdering a cop like shooting him in the face when you didn't have to. Like that really. Go ahead. Like, you know, I just. I just. grew up with a lot of guys who went NYPD and when you talk to them about people who kill cops they say the reason they take it more seriously is because if they're willing to kill a cop they're willing to kill anyone and Powell was a really creepy guy like he his his rapy was this like really real sad sack kind of loser hood guy who went by jimmy youngblood he had like 40

names i think his birthday with jimmy lee smith but he went by jimmy youngblood In Jimmy Youngblood, he was the 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. You know, and Powell really kind of, like, roped him 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 and 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 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 um and 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 um 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, you didn't have a dope habit or anything. He was, like, doing this stuff. This Black Friday, game, stream, and go full speed with one gig, Sky Broadband.

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Availability subject location, new customers only, 12 month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infoosies sky.a slash beads. He'd apparently had brain surgery that it's now believed was botched. And like he, it basically like fried 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 um he uh jimmy youngblood was on um was on parole and he was in this program before methadone's widely prescribed and before stuff like subutex there's 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 shot of alcoholics, but it didn't really work. But Youngblood was conditionally paroled, and he was able to go to this medical center for parolees, or they'd shoot him up with this compound that supposedly would cure him 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, 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 heist 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 Youngblood needed money for dough that he got, he got sucked into. this nonsense of

like pulling these like hindsight, heist like liquor stores and stuff for what amounts to chunk change. So their paths crossed with these cops because one night Pollard Youngblood were cruising

Los Angeles like presumably they were casing you know a place to rob. You know they had this ancient 1946 Ford coop, you know, like in old gangster movies, you know, like it's got that, like, sloped trunk and stuff, you know, if you know what old Ford's look like. And, um, these two police,

uh, Ian Campbell and Carl Hedinger, Campbell was the guy who ended up getting blasted and murdered. And, um, you know, both young guys, Campbell, if I, in memory 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 um

like a real heroic guy you know and Hedinger obviously looked up to him but they were they were assigned to this March 9th 63 they were assigned to this duty and 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, um, Powell just suddenly, like, drew down on him. You got the jump on, um,

on Campbell. And this is key. Um, Hedinger, uh, 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 back with a head injured. And I think Youngblood had a sought 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 suit. So he drives him all the way to Baker's Field. 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 pitchplay, he couldn't see anything.

But he's like, the overwhelming odor of onions. He's like, he 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 young blood and headinger Powell looked Campbell in the face and he says are you familiar with the Lindberg 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 Lindberg law and that was a big deal because that's a Lindberg baby, and that's another horrible case, after Lindberg son, infant son was killed by ransom

kidnappers, you know, a federal statute was passed that, you know, imposed there was no, there was no open-ended federal death penalty, but kidnapping for ransom became a death penalty offense after that. So presumably in like the

warped and like mangled mind of Powell has no 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 had 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, um, presumably that's what to say with Headinger.

because Youngblood was like panicking and he didn't blast him. So Henninger ran for literally four miles. And there was some kid, 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 that 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 up too, so 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 predictedly started losing his mind. You know, and he didn't know what at handlicks. 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 end. 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, you know, to be flippant or mean about it. You know, and he ended up, uh, 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, 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, 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, Wombo makes a big deal in the choir boys.

By the 1970s, um, a lot of police departments, including, um, LAPD had adopted the commander rank. And he thought that this was really bad. You know, and it's, um,

the subjects of the choir boys, it opens up in Vietnam. And two of the, two of the cops, two of the choir boys, 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, you know, he has a flashback and he 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 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 they're all unhinged. They've all got like a head full of war. And 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. I'm not even saying that was misguided 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, um, Burr. Burge tortured a bunch of confessions out of people. And a lot of these guys hadn't done anything. But Burge,

Burge was an MP and NOM, but he was involved in all kinds of strange stuff. And he had a bronze star with the valor 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 our 1970s police department was very much in demand. You know, and Wobb 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 it be crass, like their kids walking to school and he runs across some guy jaking off in the bushes or something, okay? 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, 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, to officer, uh, 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, and what about stuff is like cops who commit suicide. suicide because they just become like, they just like crash the fuck out. And especially them, that was a very real thing. You know, and it's, um, well, about makes the point, you know, in the 60s or 70s, when all this crazy stuff was happening, even if you survive 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, okay, fine. Now I'm, like, retired, but I'm like 41 years old. Like, what I'm going to 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 policers 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 all like, you know, three months after they retire, everybody gets worried and like they blew their fucking brains out. And Wamboy, he kind of would hint around it because he, you know,

was like a reserved guy. But, um, 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, that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty bleak, man. But the, what's significant to is what, like, a microcosm it is of, of then versus now. you know and that's one of the reasons for i mean obviously these these these horrible people in um government um and then these NGO radicals and and others who shall not be named you know they

obviously sees on stuff like like like the george floyd situation you know um as a kind of detonation strategy but the reason why they're able to do that is because police 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 cams changes everything.

Because, like, what cops do such that, like, I'm not talking about, like, Navy-type police, but, like, Chicago PD, you're, like,

L-A-P-D, you're, like, NYPD, like, the kind of stuff these guys do, you know,

like, basically, uh, it basically involves, like, breaking down, um, like street dudes

who otherwise would be cavalier in the way that they apply violence, and you can't have that. Because, you know, um,

as a sovereign government, um, 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, like you're going to get broken down. And you can't, that doesn't work in the era the Panopticon. But it's also people just kind of move differently. Like the whole, one of the,

one of the recurring motifs, especially in the choir boys, is like when these cops answer 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 there's armament five deep like that that doesn't do anything you know um so while i'm like talking about like 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 um they're in constant contact with a radio on their person like deployment to patterns of such that there's a total situational awareness. But also things are just like different. Like you wouldn't, there's not the same potential for lawlessness. 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 I 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 people have become less simian or something, but it, it's just not how you move anymore 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, 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 don't 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's it's it's difference and people's living patterns too you don't have you don't have situations anymore where people 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, 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 the traditional sense, the traditionally understood sense of what the job entailed it's not 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 transging older folks, I am one.

They have this idea like, well, we just need to take the gloves off and quote what 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 boogeys 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 I don't think 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 services, 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 probably before a judge.

But it's not going to be, we have guys in these like blue and white cars driving around, like looking for people who are fucking up or something. Like, that's done. It's not going to happen anymore. You know, and, um, even, um, 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, like, aggressive in terms of what kind of conduct they'll throw bracelets on you for. You know? And it's not

that it's not just and that's enduring even now that like we've got like a very like law and order president in the local office. It's not just the pendulum swinging back or something. Like it's like sociologically the things that become such that what we're describing is no longer viable.

And, you know, I, 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. in 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, that part, that mistakes the cause for 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, a very abruptly, everybody just kind of capitulated on that issue. You know, I realize there's still token after. 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 on their Second Amendment rights in a de facto kind of way, while still, you know, complying with the letter of the law. But, you know, the circumstances I'm always describing about deliberate communities, you know, quitting the social engineering regime, which 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, 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. You know, um, there's so many 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, you know, a bunch of suburban white guys into the hood in the, 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, 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, um, you know, like when it opens up on its Operation Hammer, where Gates is basically like like flying crash. They're just like, they're throwing the brace that sound like any, like any military age male like flying gang colors.

Because Gates's notion is like, let's arrest like all these motherfuckers. 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 bond being 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, uh, like, it really was like a war, you know, and, um, 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 Crips.

And, uh, like, the one dude, uh, the one who's got a Mac 10 and then Don Sheetle, he's got an AK and they're like throwing like frags at each other like I was watching this movie with this chick I was like I was like that movie this chick I know who 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 understand what is I understand is

his tad 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, um, 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 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 of that 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. 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 deals with violence as its currency. But, you know, that Prince is an interesting guy. And he understands this better than most people,

despite the fact that 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 phenomena, 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 a decade or longer, like basically your entire conceptual horizon, you know, orbits around kind of like police science and, and the kind of strictures that, you know, supposedly are the kind of core tenets of, of policing when

that's that's pretty much dead in the water and I mean especially these days too you know I lament a lot the 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 determine if this is like a causal variable or just like a secondary effect. Maybe 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 Elvin Toffler, the guy wrote Future Shock, which is a really good book. But, you know, Prince is the day. 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, they'll take some planning and some money, but there's,

there's guys who have never even had a smartphone, like in the traveler as a Pakistan, like, they, 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, they're very, they're, they're very util in battlefield situations for that reason, you know, um, and, uh, and, uh, 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 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, there isn't happened. I mean, let's say, let's say the president or, you know, somebody else was in like Trump situation. And, like, like a dozen like drones like converge on it. I'm like what the serious service going to do? Start

blasting the drones and they're, they're kind of cosy 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 such that there is a countermeasure. I mean, yeah, you do need you do still need eyes on the operational area. Like, especially like spotting or 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 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, like, if I was at Starbucks and I found I discover 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, you 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 to 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 it can be like very scary. And, you know, you need to be able to call people to help you and 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. you know so that's important what i will say is i think it back forgive me because i wanted to i should have said this when we were kind of breaking down wambos catalog the new centurions is like a good book

yeah it's like pro-police stuff and because he was he was like an l-a-pd 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. But many officers were 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 what are we looking over his shoulder.

But it does, 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 kit. I mean, and then, like, they hit the street. And, like, one of the guys' names is Duran. He's basically, like, 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 to, like, East L.A. and like the heart basically, I think around Echo Park. I have to reread it. But he, that's probably the most, like, people criticize the books saying like, oh, well, Wamba, he draws non-white 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 gets like the Echo Park beat or whatever, and he's like, I'm not like these fucking people, like your scumbags. And 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 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,

fun guy out of college. You know, and he needs to 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 looks down on his fellow officers. He's just, it's kind of like regular, like, middle class white dude. But then, like, he gets

he gets assigned, like, the deep hood. So, like, when Watts jumps off, like, he gets, he's, like, under fire and stuff. And then he realizes, like, he gets, like, humbled by the whole experience. You know, like, stuff like that. It's, um, you know,

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 a, it is kind of like a snapshot. And it's called the New Centurion. It's 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 um you know wants to be a police officer and um he 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's 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 as 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 uh 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 is kind of like an American Jallo picture.

I really like it. But the opening scene there's these two cops and one of them's 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 spells. It's like, he's like, what the hell is happening? You know, and it's like, you get that sense, like, in the new centurians.

Like, um, especially, like, in the Danumwa, where like the characters past 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 in a dumpster because there's a sniper,

like, popping off at me with a 30 out six. Like, what's happening here? Like, something's, something's coming apart, you know, and, um, so it's worthwhile for that reason. Well, I'm about a little bit wrote some later books. And like I said, it's kind of, interestingly, James Elroy, I've mixed feelings about, but I do think he's important to Los Angeles culture in some ways. And I identify with him in some respects. But he said when he was home, he said he saved a bunch of his money from panhandling and stuff. And like, so he could buy The Onion Field. It was like his favorite book, you know, and he always like looked up the cops and things like that.

So 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. Like one of his books is about like 1980s like Slamano Valley and like porn shit. And it's kind of grimy. I mean, that's a grimy fucking subject. I put it, um, but it's, I didn't find it off-putting, but I thought that it was, for, for tabla reasons, I mean, I read all kinds of stuff that people probably find, would think

it's gross, but it seemed, um, it sounds, something seems kind of, like, affected about it, but, um, so I, I, I wouldn't recommend as, like, later stuff, but definitely, 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 like the book that much And 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 am. Yeah, go ahead.

I have a suggestion. Yeah. This episode was sort of, sort of like our movie reviews. And I think we should release one publicly so people can see what's, you know, what we do. Yeah, man.

I think, I think Resurrection Man would be a good one to release publicly. Because that's one where 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 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 shell have been going 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, um, I don't have any great insight into, other than, I don't have any great insight into the troubles, man. I just, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I mean, kind of an obsessive study of it because it, but obviously, you know, that, that's , that's a totally different different 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. We'll talk about what to do next and privately. And do some, do some plugs. And I'm going to go talk to the OG, go talk to the old glory club, guys. that's great um i'm uh i'm i'm launching season three of the pod um the first week in february and i the guy who's going to collab with me on the first couple episodes i talked to him by phone today which was which is awesome i'm going to tweak it a little bit i'll explain before i really before i upload it but i'm every day today like i 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 on the paywall until season one and two are totally free. And I'm going to upload a bunch of other free shit, like, content that I haven't released before. You can find all that at good stuff on my substack. It's real Thomas 777.7.7.com. I'm on social media at capital REO. number seven, H-O-M-A-S-777.

And you can go to my website, Thomas-777.com, but the first T, or the only T, is a seven. 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, yeah.