In this episode I surprise interview a veteran of the LAPD. Ken Roybal saw a lot and did a lot during his career at one of the nations largest departments. We talk about being a boot in the 1980’s, responding to the LA riots, and his 5 year stint as a Police Chaplain. Ken has a ton of great stories and it was really fun hearing him tell them! If you have any police background investigation questions email me and I will do another episode with Ken where we answer them.
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hey guys welcome to the podcast thankyou for checking out or thank you forreturning in continuing to listen inthis episode I sit down and I chat witha very good friend of mine Ken RoybalKen’s got some amazing stories set areally interesting career with LAPD hewas a chaplain at one time he didbackgrounds that as both a policeofficer and as a civilian just just areally fun interview we were actually inthe field together doing a call and Ihad to I had the recorder in my backpackhe was unaware of it I’ve been trying totrap him into doing this podcast forquite a while so I was happy that heagreed to do it and it was just a reallya really fun talk we take a walk downmemory lane what it was like to be aboot back in the 80s what it was likeduring the riots just a really funconversation and I was so happy to beable to get it so this will be episodenumber 16 that we’re gonna be listeningto it’s it’s been going great guys likeI said before I say every episode thankyou so much for checking the podcastsout and keeping it rolling if you couldclick subscribe comment rate whateverwhatever you can do on on iTunes that isalways helpful for the podcast and ifyou have any questions or if you want towant to reach out to me it’s thingsplease see at gmail.com and that’s inthe description of this episode sowithout further ado here is episodenumber 16 this is things police seizefirst an account with your oast Stevegoldcan Roybal thank you for coming on thepodcast ah pleasure thank you forinviting me I want to do just four to becompletely transparent Kenna OTT and Iare doing some field work and I don’tthink you’re aware that I have myrecorder in my bag and I said hey can Iinterview you and you said I guess thatwas cool thank youso that’s what we’re doing now we’re ina we’re driving on a highway and I’minterviewing Ken so if there’s anypauses or awkwardness well blame it onthe roadken you were a LAPD copper as they sayfor 20-plus years and had an interestingcareer because you went from LAPD to abackground investigator as an LAPDofficer then back to LAPD the street andnow you’re back in backgrounds yeah Iwas uh it was interesting because I wasI worked patrol then went to tobackgrounds in 1997 and we were allgetting taken out of backgrounds becausethey were civilian izing it so they werehiring retired guys which I wasn’t sothen I retired in 2003 and went back asa background investigator and that waskind of cool cuz I already knew the jobso it worked out for me pretty goodso LAPD backgrounds basically has itsmajority civilian background guys mostof them are ex cops cops injured on dutyretired cops and then there’s like ahandful of actual sworn officers stilldoing the job just so everybody knowsken what I’m interested in is I am kindof fascinated with how it was for bootsback in the day like when you were a newLAPD cop back in the 80s it was a littlebit different than it is now what do youthink the major differences are whenyou’re you’re hitting the road as a bootand being trained rather than now well Itell you what you know there’s this oldsaying you know that goes like hmm youknow you’re lower than whalebecause that’s what you were when youwere when you’re on probation in the1980s and LAPD it was still veryhardcoreyou know you had to earn your you had toearn your way in you had to earn yourbadge all that kind of thing so boots onLAPD in the 1980syou know you jumped in the car you shutup you didn’t say anything you didn’tgrow mustaches you didn’t do it stopwhat no mustache you were not allowed togrow facial hair on probation so youknow it’s unreal my one of my firsttraining officers we got in the car hmmand I was saying okay and this is thethis is the lights and the siren where’sthe sirenhe goes hey look all you all you have toworry about is all you have to worryabout is looking forward in the car anddon’t be touching my lights you may rolldown the window down but don’t don’t betouching anything in the car sobasically just eyes open they’ll shutyou’re there to learn yeah that’s ityou’re there to learn and you were lowerthan whale which is pretty low soyou didn’t nobody took for granted thatyou had any rights and you had to earnyour way and if you got the respect ofthe training officers but that tookmonths and months so you know you’repretty much nothing but you wereexceptionally baby-facedand I know because I know for a factthat they let you grow moustache earlythey did because we were on a call onetime and the only reason I got to grow amoustache because I was working with mywith a training officer named Mark andwe were on a call and this lady came youknow I’m trying to be hardcore cuz I’m Iwasn’t brought up in in South LA oranything like that so this I’m trying tobe bad ass looking and she comes up andhe goes you a rookie huh I go yeah no noand so after that my partner my trainershe goes yeah you need to grow amustache cuz I look like a little alittle child in my uniform I’ve seensome pictures of you and your younger inuniform and it’s kind of cute I was kindof cute yes I was adorableyep you I mean it’s in stirring nowbecause a lot of police can and it saidthat you vet to become police officershaven’t haven’t necessarily mixed it upin their life or gotten physical or beenin a fight even Iguess I guess you could say in a waythings become more civilized but it’salso kind of a detriment to the jobbecause there are times when you’re onthe you’re on the street and someonechallenges you have to get physical soI’m like back then you probably had thebefore you you know got through trainingyou probably to prove that you were youcould handle yourself you know no thatwas a rite of passage man you had toyour training officers would not let melet me see how I can put this they wouldnot discourage suspects you wanted toget in a fight because they wanted totest test the the probationers and ifyou did not jump in the fight you weredone if you acted scared or anyway youshowed any fear in front of suspects itdidn’t matter who they were ex-conspeople whatever you were expected to getin the fight and be right there alongevery with everybody else if you didn’tyou were toast yeah I mean I’m sureespecially you don’t no one wants thepartner who who cowers or isn’t able toperform or cracks under pressure so yeahone thing that that has changed sinceyou know since then to now is theyactually gave training on the departmentwhere they encouraged us to get physicalwith the with the suspects and to getyou know get hands-on with them andnowadays I don’t think that’s that’spart of training so yeah we were we wereencouraged to put hands on get getphysically involved in use force to takesuspects into custody yeah it’s just areality of the job and I think I’ve seennationally they’ll just looking into itthe some academies are even removingtheir like most most cabins have like aboxing program or a wrestling program ora Krav Maga or some kind of martial artsor combat skills of course so some ofthem are just eliminating them so whichis which isn’t helping anyone becausethere is a lot of people who are gettingin this job that I’ve never been neverhad their bell rung they’ve never beenhit in the head and they’re they’regoing so that’s one more thing they’regonna be afraid of with with a plethoraof other things on the street that canhurt youyeah one thing that that people don’trealize is they the onlysee in the news when oh there’s ashooting that happened you know or anofficer got killed or something likethat what they don’t realize or theydon’t think about is a police workby its very nature is generally aviolent profession and it’s just it’snot because you know police officers arethugs or they want to you know mess uppeople it’s because by nature the jobit’s just a violent profession and youend up seeing things and doing thingsthat are violent that’s just that’s justthe way it is yeah yeah like you saidit’s not it’s the reality of it it’s notsomething that people want to come toterms with I did I did a little diggingon my smartphone here as we weretraveling down the road ken is um has awebsite called police police backgroundthought net police background dotnetokay so he’s kind of a somewhat of anexpert in the background field would sayyou are an expert you’ve been doing itfor how many years Oh total of 16 yearsnowLAPD backgrounds right which are prettythorough so I dug into the message boardwhich a ton of people go on so if you’reif you’re looking into getting policework or joining joining a policedepartment is a really great resourcefor that but um I dug into your sectiona little and I was fascinated bysomething called the probationer 100 youexplain that to the folks that now hmmbear in mind this is in 1980 and so it’snot all politically correct as it is nowbut we did the I was working as aprobationer and for I don’t know if yourlisteners are aware of what aprobationer is but when you get out ofthe Academy do six months in the Academythen you do a year probation so whereyou might get a job and you might be onyou know probation for three months orwhatever and then they go okay you’rereally hired now police officerprobation is a year so in the first yearI was working at Newton and NewtonStreet was a small little Street and Iwas working morning watch which isgraveyard and all of a sudden someonehad the bright idea that there were twoother probationers on that watch with meone was a classmate and one was too muchahead of us and someone had the brightidea and roll call that they shouldclose off Newton’s street and theyshould make us run sprint in a race thethree probationers down the street to infront of the police station all ofroll-call went out there and theywatched us and we’re bagging on us andcheering us and the good thing that cameout of it was whichever one of the threeprobationers won the footrace they’retrained Oscar’s got a case of beer didany of the beer go to the to the victorof the race oh no no no but I was awinnerso my to my to Tio’s got a case of beerthat’s excellent I don’t see anythingwrong with something like that that’scool I mean I’m sure you guys weren’t itwasn’t you weren’t doing it under duressyou probably was probably laughing andhaving a good time oh we were having funthat we were laughing about it and stuffand I won and and you know all that kindof thing in the training officers andeven the lieutenant and sergeants wereout there it was just I was kind of Iguess you could say was team-buildingand it was part of you know is just partof a rite of passage type of thing whereyou’re a good guy you’re a good sportyou’re not a wuss and all that and andpeople may frown on it in 2018 but backthen it was it was cool wasn’t hard onanybody no like you said it’steam-building even if just play alongwith it and you’re gonna have a goodtime you know one you know no one’sgonna get hurt with something like thatthat’s and that’s the thing they’rethere they cracked down along crack downon a lot now and in organizations is anykind of like they’d call it hazing butreally that kind of activity kind ofgels everybody together you know yeahyeah we all had a good laugh about itand they thought we were good guys andand you know everybody just had a goodtime with it and it didn’t cost anybodyanything another facet of yourmultifaceted career I am especiallyinterested in is you were a policechaplain for a time yeah and to me thisis just so interesting because I was Iwas raised Catholic and then kind offell away from the church and then Imore recently become just a Christianjust basically go to a Baptist Churchnow and kind of just refound God I’d sayto church again and I’m really kind ofenjoying it and the whole policechaplain thing is so neat because whereI worked was very rural would be youknow would that be in extremis it wasn’trural but it was it wasn’t a citydepartment so we didn’t have like and itwas small so we didn’t have a lot of ofthe different services at a place likeLAPD would have so we didn’t like it ifwe ever saw a chaplain it was from amuch bigger department neighboringdepartment would be at a funeral or orwherever else you’d see I don’t knowwhoever you’d see a chaplain but how doyou become a police chaplain how doesthat happenwell you at that time hmm and I don’tknow how it is now this is so this isback in 1985 when I when I joined when Ibecame a chaplain there were four othersworn chaplains and there’s a differencebetween sworn and the civilian ones thecivilian ones were the the regularpastors in the churches and they werevolunteers from the from the differentdivisions you know the churches and theywould volunteer their services and thenthere were with me included there werefive police chaplains that were swornofficers and we had our regular policebadge and then we were doing chaplainduties we had a an LAPD badge that saidchaplain on it and then we wore crosseson the lapels because the because thechaplains at the time were all bornagain Christians there weren’t otherdenominations or other religionsinvolved in it so we wore crosses on ourlapels and we were directly assigned tothe Chief of Police so del Darrell Gateswas our chain of command along with thechaplain coordinator so we whenever Igot called out to either to do some kindof counseling grief counseling or afuneral of a retired officer we we justwent up to our watch commanders and wego hey I got an assignment for the chiefand I have a chaplain duties and therewas there was nothing they could say andthen we would go out and you know wewould counsel officers and then we wouldwe would do a lot of funerals a lot offuneralsoh I’m sure and whatwhat’s the training involved somethinglike that they’re gonna they required usto have like I went to a two-week it waslike university level program where Istayed overnight at this place callednarramore Christian Institute and I hadLake counseling training and things likethat and you didn’t have to be licensedor anything like anything like youdidn’t have to be ordained by an by anykind of church they just looked at yourqualifications and to see if you werequalified to be a chaplain and thenthey’re very select but like I say therewas only five of us and I love you forall of LAPD yeah oh wow so it’s justkind of like a non domination Christianposition like yeah yeah and there’s noother where do other religions have aequivalent to a chaplain yeah they donowadays I think hmm maybe there’s amaybe they’re Jewish chaplains andMuslims and different denominations andand different religious organizationsthat have their own chaplains but theyare LAPD officers I think they’re muchbigger now okay and is there is there uhit’s gonna be might be a dumb questionbut is there a chapel there is there’s achapel up at the Academy and they builtit and it’s it’s the funniest thingbecause it was a it’s a beautiful chapelI mean it’s it’s a small little thingyou could actually have a wedding upthere if you wanted it’s gorgeousbeautiful beautiful chapel and it’sright right above the shooting rangeit’s awesome is there so a chaplain inthe police but where do you fall in likea normal church like is where you guysaffiliated with a local church or whereit’s just police chaplain now it’s justpolice chaplains we were all independentmaybe like a deacon or something itdepends on each each member a chaplainsome were deacons and some you know Iwas just like a layperson so I wasn’t Iwasn’t I didn’t have any title in achurch but my qualifications to be achaplain we’re all that that wasnecessaryand you know yeah there was no there wasno official titles from any churchesthat you had to present okay and how howlong did you do that for five years andI can imagine I’m just guessing the butkind of a heavy job I mean you probablydid a lot of funerals like you said soyeah that that was a kind of it that waskind of the thing about that that I hadto eventually stop doing it before rolesand weddings yeah it was well I did twoweddings so that was coolto to actually one two three four policeofficers who you know they decided getmarried as couples and I did the sir thethe weddings for them but the majorityof them the reason people called calledchaplains are because they’re notmembers of a church and they need areligious figure and so they call achaplain because when you have a funeralyou need to have you know like biblicalwords and things like that so you call achaplain because it’s not attached to achurch and you don’t have a pastor soyou call someone who knows the rightwords and and sense of the dead personoff to God understood so after fiveyears that was time to pass the torch ohthat was heavy duty I was just you knowbecause when we would do funerals we I’dgo maybe a couple days before thefuneral and talk to the family and getstories and and you know make sure theywere doing okay and and you know kind oflike grief counseling and things andthen I would ask him you know so tell mewhat are there any special stories thatthat you would like to share with peopleoh boy and all that and it was it was alittle bit a little bit heavy after fiveyears those are the most pressurizedmoments I think in any any adult life islike hey can you can you say some wordsat your grandmother’s funeral or or youknow can you run the funeral as achaplain would or even like a will yoube my best man like those arepressurized moments where you have to beyou have to you have to conjure up theright emotion a touch of humor you haveto do everything right at this anincredibly important moment in thebeginning of this person’s life or theend of their lifeit’s always like a dubious honor whenyou have to do that it’s like yeah ofcourse boyyeah a funeral is a one-time shot manyou can’t blow it and it has to bebeautiful and has to be touching andit’s you know funerals what I learnedfrom being a chaplain is funerals aren’tfor the dead person they’re furtherpeople that are living and you have togive them a good sense of wow that was agreat send-off nicely done becausethat’s gonna be where the the differencebetween before the funeral and after thefuneral is before the funeral there’smourning the the day of the funeralafter their funeral that’s the the thethe finalization of everything that ledup to that day yeah that’s some closurefive years is plenty yeah that was woothat was getting a little a little heavyfor me after well Ken can you tell thelisteners about all those years ago whenyou reboot the first call you had thatkind of like really got your adrenalinegoing it was kind of like your firstexciting moment as a police officer wellgoing going back you know like I say Ihad never brought up in a real I wasn’tbrought up and it kind of you know diceyStreet situation or I had to confrontgang members or fight my way you know toschool him back but so I wasn’t reallyfamiliar with a lot of the lot of thatstuff so I remember specifically onetime we were at a in Newton division andwe were at a street corner and wedecided to to talk to this guy and so westopped him and my partner you know Iwas in training so he had me you knowcheck the guy search him for weapons andand all that kind of stuff so anywaysthe guy is a real like he doesn’t seemlike he’s a violent criminal didn’t looklike an ex-con he just looked like someguy there was you know some oldergentleman maybe in his 40s going out tofor a beer run at the local you know thelocal liquor Mart or something like thatso anyways I don’t I didn’t thinkanything about it hmm so I I got behindthe guy tell him to spread his legs puthis hand behind his backkind of you know having them lean on myon my elbow a little bit as I as Ipulled him back and I’m doing my thingI’m searching his his chest area and onthe side and like that and I go aroundhis waist and there’s a pistol in hiswaist and I you know I have never donethis before but somehow or another LAPDdid a good job in the Academy and Iimmediately grabbed the gun and I yelledto my partner gun and my partner drewdown on them and I pulled the gun outand I put it in my pocket and thenpulled my gun on the guy and we took himinto custody but let me tell you if ifyou spent all your time just playingbasketball like I did and the next thingyou know you’re pulling a gun out of aloaded gun out of a guy’s waistband boythat’s a pooper one right there you’regonna you’re gonna poop in your pantsfor not literally but figurativelyspeaking that’s a bit of a change soyeah that was that was kind of anadrenaline rush right there and when wegot done I go that’s right I’m doing itbaby on the job man but yeah that wasscary that’s a good one yeah that istrue I mean and after that call you heythese people have gunsyeah get around you’ve no clue who has agun nope no clue no who wants to hurtyou and yeah and I learned one thingright there is the the people that youdon’t think would have a gun those arethe guys with guns yeah that that isscary absolutelycan can you tell listeners about yourmost intense moment on the job or thatanything you were involved in that wasjust just you know to the max let’s saywell yeah the one that hmm the-the-the Iguess on the job if I there were a lotof intense moments and ones that madeyour you know the adrenaline got soheavy your head was gonna explode thattype of thing but I think one of thebiggest times was during the LA riotsthe you know the whole Rodney King thingand and we were getting bashed by byeverybody for being LAPD because RodneyKing got beat up and all that but Iremember that day specifically because Iwas working in admin unit and I was inWest Hollywood at the sheriff’s stationfor some reasonworking Wilshire division and and then Iheard on the news that the the policeofficers in Simi Valley they were inSimi Valley at the trial and they gotthey were acquitted of beating RodneyKing so I got back to the station andmm-hmm we keep hearing you know reportsof you know bad stuff happening in thestreet and the first night we I wasworking for a captain at the time andthings started going downhill after thatand fires started and and they thinkthat was gonna happenno no so this caught them off-guard no Imean I was out there tooling arounddoing my you know visiting the sheriffstation doing what I had to do get fromthem and all that and nobody had a cluewe weren’t ready for any of that thelast riot was maybe 19 I’m gonna say1966 or something the Watts Riots soit’s not like now they’re ready for thatstuff oh yeah they’re 24/7 this isdifferent and so we weren’t ready andyou know one of the funny things thatthat you hear from the news as they saypolice officers were in full riot gearand what that means is you put a helmeton and obviously now you’re in full riotgear so we were in full riot gear butbut then I always work nights so I wasworking that I immediately got my friendwas the was the sergeant doingassignments and I immediately went toher and I said I need to be on I need tobe on be watch which is 6:00 p.m. to6:00 a.m. because I was not gonna work6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and miss all theaction that happens when the Sun GoesDown so so we started we just startedgrouping up and when when LAPD goes intomobilization which means the wholedepartment goes on 12-hour watches 12 on12 off okay and then it also means thatthey they go out in squads of 12 so wewould have four cars with three threeofficers in each carand wherever you went where if you got aradio call from you know a regularpatrol you would go you and your partnerwould go to this call that was that waspatrol but patrol during the riots was12 officers will show up somewherewe weren’t answering radio calls if youwent up and down the main drags fourduring the first night of the riots halfof the buildings were on fire we didn’tanswer radio calls unless they were atpawn shops or gun shops because theywere looting anywhere where there wereguns right so anyways the first night II have you know everybody keeps theiruniform in the everybody keeps theiruniforms in the locker and blah blahblah and all that so my stuff’s allavailable but for some reason I have anyblack socks for my uniform so much mycaptain gets those you get to go home inor noso my captain gets to the station I gohey do you ever you know a pair of sockslike I’m borrow heat so I I borrowed apair of black socks from my from my thedivisional captain which is very unusualand then he gets there and it’s alreadyit’s starting to get dark and we wereright next to two a big shopping centercalled Midtown and so this our thiscaptain he was probably maybe 6-3 6-4and we go out to the back I walked outwith him to the back of the station andwe looked over the wall and I’m up onthe I’m up on my tippy-toeslooking over the the block wall and he’slooking over at the block wall and inthe middle of the street we see a trashbin you know where the big trash binswere think wheels on it yeah yeah yeahon fire in the middle of the street infront of the police station oh man andhe looked this guy was such a cool cathe looks he looks at the Bernie theburning trash bin in his division that’sgoing to as we speak and he’slistening and then the this low voice hegoes that’s not good we walked away butyeah so so we were we were we weren’tgoing out in mass just yet so we’re allhuddled up at the police station becausethey’re trying to figure out what to doyou know this is like okay everybodyopen your riot books no there wasnothing like that you the watchcommanders were kind of going okay weshould do this so then the so thenthere’s officers that are out in thefield and there’s a health call thatcomes out and I help call once when anofficer needs help that means someone’sgonna die you need to get officers herebecause someone’s gonna die and so sothere’s a health call that comes out andthey had to use so much disciplinebecause the automatic reaction frompolice officers is everybody jump inyour car and everybody go out to thehelp call run it everybody stop whateverit is that’s gonna hurt the policeofficers but because of the riots theyonly say they thought they held us backand they only let one squad go out sothere was those times when it starts toget dark health calls are coming outonly certain amount of people could goso they decided that it was already darkit was it was probably six seven thirtyby that time and I had started at ten inthe morning and just went into full riotmode and we all got dressed in our youknow our uniforms like that so I gotassigned to squad and they decided thatright next to the police station thatpeople had the nerve to go into the intothe stores and start looting the storesright next to the police station theythought they had license to do that likethe burning dumpster that’s you justknow it it’s unhinged what’s wrong withyou and it’s really surreal becausereally you know so we we took our squadand another squad so there were twentyfour of us that went next door and wewere gonna stop the looters so we’re outthere in the parking lot and this ismaybe a hundred yards from the policefrom the police stationand we’re standing out there talking toto these these looters and we didn’tknow at the time what to do so we gowe’re talking to them and whatever andand all of a sudden we started hearingnoise the this noise you know you hearwhen when it’s metal hitting metal andby the time it registered we wediscovered that there were there werebullets hitting our police carsoh man yeah of course he wouldn’tprobably wouldn’t have experienced thatsound anytime no not if it was unless itwas a movie or something like thatright so so we realized that it was itwas bullets we told all the looters getout of here and we jumped in our carsand everybody kind of took off but wedrove behind a bank building and tookcover there and then we just kind of itwas at that moment that that puckerfactor was incredible and I’m standingbehind the thing it’s like war yeah itis because now they’re sniping at us andand you can hear that the police thebullets hitting the cars so so we jumpback there and it was at that momentthat I’m standing behind the bank withmy gun out we couldn’t see the shootersbecause it was dark and they wereshooting from across the street and I’msitting there talking myself and I’mlike what the hell is going on andimmediately after that we there was thegroup of us all got together and wedecided you know it was one of thosetimes you go oh no I don’t think soso we all jumped in our cars all 24 ofus and we just hit across the street butunfortunately they were all gone butthat would have been a really hellaciousfirefight if they had stayed and decidedto duke it out with us because by thattime once we realized what was going onwe were ready I mean that takes a lot ofthat takes a lot of bravery beingespecially initially being pinned downby the gunfire and let me get into yourhead a little bit when you’re whenyou’re back there and you guys are alllike kind of getting your bearingsbehind cover getting your guns out likewere you married at the time do you havekids at the time yeah that was a thatwas a pretty difficult thing for mebecause Jenny and the kids so we havetwo kids and they were maybe let me seein that at that time my daughter wasmaybe let me seeshe was maybe about six and so my sonwas probably about eight then they’dhave to flash through your mind whenyou’re like because you could die yeah Imean well the tough part was that afterafter the first 12-hour shift and allthey’re doing is they’re seeing what’son TV and they know that that the cityof Los Angeles is just going to pot Imean that there’s plumes of smokeeverything’s on firethere’s shootings people aren’t stoppingin the street because other crowds ofpeople are running are running out totheir cars at stoplights so they’re justplowing through all these people andlowing them down because they’re afraidand the so I get done with my 12-hourshift and I’ve been shot at and I gethome and it’s I’m dead tired and my wifeand my kids they’re tucking me into bedcuz cuz I need to get some rest cos Igot to get up and I got to go back towork in about ten hours yeah but you’rea little weary yeah so I’m lying in bedgetting change you know good nighteverybody it’s like are you telling yourwife about getting shot at and all thatstuff are you trying to not tell her Ithink I mentioned it to her and she waskind of upset about it but I knew I hadto go back yeah so weird Lane we’re justkind of sitting there on the bed and I’msitting up and the kids are by my sideand and and my wife and my littledaughter I think I if I remember she’smaybe four years old and I’m gettingready to go sleep and my daughter looksat me and she says she says daddy Idon’t want you to die oh and then I wentto sleep and I got up a few hours laterand I drove to LA and I’m on the SantaMonica freeway and there’s nothing butplumes of smoke because the city’s onfire and one thing gosh one thing I’llsay about that about LAPD officers and apolice officer anywhere you could theworst in the world could happened andthey’re still gonna go back and they’restill gonna do their jobno matter what and I had to leave myfamily and my little daughter is tellingme I don’t want you to die so I had todo everything I could you know to stayalive so that was basically that’s thetough moment yeah you’re like I don’twant to die either that’s incredible manme how easy would it be to pick up thephone and go I’m sick yeah I’m notcoming again I mean you lose a lot offace that way but it takes a lot ofcourage and the fact that so manyofficers day after day during the riotskept going back and I’ve said it manytimes on this podcast before not manytimes but a couple times before when theriots have come up on the East Coastwhere we were we thought LA was gonnaburn to the groundwe were watching television at nightgoing oh it’s over like it’s finallyhappened la is eating itself oh it’sit’s interesting because the world Imean if you were down anywhere nearSouth Central or mid-city or anythingeverything was burning down and Iremember one time there was a story arethe second night of the riots we weregoing to buy that time we wereprotecting fire firefighters because afirefighter had been shot at I’m likewho shoots at firefighters for cryingout loudso our job then was to protect thefirefighters and we’re going down thestreet with our batons out andeverything ready to take some kind ofyou know formation to protect thefirefighters and this lady had been infront of a street where they hadbarricaded the street with cars andstuff because they were gonna protecttheir own Street and she looks at us shelooks us right in the face and she goeswe don’t need you like I’m like okayokay and then there’s just differentlittle stories within the within theriots at first it you know what is funnyis talk about you know seeing God in ineverything and so this one time therewas a there were buildings that wereburning down the fire department was heeven going to them they were just wholeshopping centers that were just slowlyburning to the ground and one time therewas this this electric pole that was onfire and it was it was slowly getting tothe top and we’re standing there andthen it gets to the transformer part ofthe fireI mean the the electric pole right andall of a sudden the there’s oil in it orsomething in those big metal parts of itexplode it exploded and it was beautifulbecause it was like this bright lightand I’m looking at it and I’m aChristian and I was certain at thatmoment that Jesus was coming for meright then it was such a brilliant thosecan burn your retinas looking at thoseand they blow up oh now I know yeahhaving to a surgeon plane did blow uphere to take like a week off is all itwas amazingamazing and you want it do you want tohear about the the Koreatown stuff yes Idoso Koreatown was in Wilshire at the timeand what they were doing was the theKoreans were were had shopping centersand things that they they ownedbusinesses at and stuff and they werearmed to the teeththey had semi-automatic rifles and allkinds of stuff I heard they protectedtheir stuff hardcore they did and onetime we were on the corner of this sixand Western and this this person I don’tremember who comes over to us and hegoes yeah hey there’s a bunch of guyswith guns over here so of course youknow that’s like candy to policeofficers but you’re offering us candy sowe went over to the corner I was a blockup looking for guys with guns and it wasa whole it was ABC food market and thewhole shopping center was blocked off onthe driveways with cars there were guyson the roof with nothing but semi-autorifles and that we looked that up atthem and then we were outgunned and wego yeah that’s okay I’ve heard I’veheard of other stories like that whenthey’re like Nate like peopleneighborhoods arming themselves yeahplease kind of be like I’ll be carefulhelp yeah helps us and the the secondnight of the riots because the firedepartment wasn’t responding withambulances and stuff very often that wegot a call of a shooting that hadhappened there were five people down soso what had what had occurred is thatthey had a small Korean radio station inKoreatownand what they were doing is they werehaving people like shop owners andthings they were calling up the radiostation saying that oh there’s badpeople out here there’s bad people doingthis and these guys listening to theradio station with guns in their carsthey were patrolling Koreatown toprotect all their you know their fellowstore owners and things like that sothere’s one group of five guys in a verysmall car they showed up I think it wasat 2nd or 3rd and I Rolo in in Wilshiredivision and there’s a they didn’t knowthat there was another group on therooftop that was armed and looking forbad people that were looting and thingslike that so they get there and there’sthe group on the roof saw them and theythink they’re bad guys so they proceededto open fire so much opened fire on thiscar well we got there and the car lookedlike Swiss cheese literally Swiss cheesethere were so many bullet holes and thenand then the five guys four of them wereleaning up against the glass buildingthey were just all shot to hell andthere was one guy his name was Edward Ithink Edward song Lee and he was layingin the street on his side and because ofthe second night of the riots theambulances weren’t really respondingbecause there were too much stuff to doright so it took about 20 minutes forthe for the ambulance to arrive in themeantime I’m standing next to Edward andhis eyes are looking at me his facesturn he’s looking at me and I’m lookingat him and I keep looking back away andI’m looking to him and slowly slowly hedies oh man and the ambulance gets thereand you know he was dead but the otherguys were just were just messed up Idon’t know what happened to them but Ispecifically remember Edward Edward waslooking at me in the eyes as he wasdying and there was nothing I could doWow and these were God these are justother another Korean group that werepresumably doing the same thing as thepeople on the roof but theydidn’t know each other yeah it was justlike a miscommunication where theythought they were the bad guys and andto tell you how heightened the tensionswere they didn’t wait for the good forthem to get out of the car the they shotthem in the carwow that’s that’s insane that’s scarythat is yeah Wow can I want to thank youso much for coming on the podcast youhad truly great stories and I have aproposition for you if would you comeback on if some listeners had somequestions about backgroundsoh absolutely always happy to help befun so anybody listening whose thingabout being a police officer is curiousabout the background investigation whatyou’re gonna face what’s involved in itright in some questions and I’llcertainly I’ll have you back anyways butit’d be fun to have you back on toanswer some listener questions because Iknow there’s from the emails I’ve beengetting over the last month I know thatthere’s a lot of listeners out therethat are our possible future candidatesso that would be probably helpful forthem yeah absolutely I would always bewilling to come back I always want tohelp backgrounds candidates get in thesystem and become police officers youneed good guysawesome thank you Ken thank you
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