In this episode I sit down with retired LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective Jay Moberly. A mans family is murdered and his house is set on fire when he is away. The events that lead up to the horrific crime stem from a dispute between two local business owners. Jay takes us through the discovery of the crime, the investigation, and the arrest of the suspects.
hey guys welcome to the podcast thankyou for joining us in this episode ichat with jay Moberly jay is a retiredrobbery homicide detective from LosAngeles Police Department RobberyHomicide is one of the most eliteinvestigative units in the country I’dsay four for all police departmentsJay’s got a ton of experience a ton ofgreat stories the main thing we get intois a quadruple homicide that he was alead investigator on it’s justfascinating to hear how a crime thisintense an investigation this large getsinvestigated and ultimately solvedreally fun interview I was really luckythat Jay was able to give me some of histime to be interviewed I’m thankful forthat and without further ado here’sepisode number 19 this is things policeseize first an account with your oastSteve goldJ Moberly thank you for coming on thepodcast ma’am thanks for having me I’mexcited to have you I know you’ve beenyou were an LAPD police officer for along long time you started when you werelike 13 or something right and we sawthere was some program for the city whyI’m only 25 I actually started I enteredthe Academy 319 days before my 21stbirthday and retired at 35 years laterWow and even before that you did aprogram with the city that like I didgot you involved right I did I was whatthey call a student worker policestudent worker it was a program forcollege students designed it to – what’sthe word I’m looking for kind of kind ofhang on to you know cut generateinterest of young mostly males back inthose days right now there were femalestarting to come on the job as well butwhat you what the deal was you had to begoing to school carrying a certainamount of units during this school yearyou know you could only work 20 hoursand you got – it gave me a lot ofinsight into the admin side of thedepartment that I would have nevergotten otherwise because I never workedan inside job and you know the staff inthe staff side of it during the summeryou could work full-time and didn’t haveto go to school okay it was a great jobI did that for two and a half years andI went straight into the Academy when Iwas after going through the backgroundprocess and all that that’s a goodprogram because then that way – they getto get a feel for you and if you’re agood fit and it’s a great program I Ithink they still have it to this day butI know it was discontinued for a longtime but I tell you what there’s not a Imean a short of and again it you knoweducation goes along with it becauseyou’re you were required to be going toschool right but short of maybe amilitary background or something likethat you really can’t get much betterinsight into LAPD anyway short of aprogram like that I thought it wasterrific I learned a lot from it that’sawesomenow you ended your career as a robberyhomicide detective correct I did okayand that um and this might be a stupidquestion but I think other people mighthave it in their head – is there isrobbery homicide is that different thanstraight upwell it’s in LAPD there’s 21geographical areas now on the East Coastyou would call them precincts okay wecall them divisions or stations and inevery one of those 22 or 21 divisionsthere is a robbery section in thedetective bureau and there’s a homicidesection then in addition to that thosein those geographic areas the detectivesonly investigate crimes that occurwithin their boundaries of their G ofthe city okay in Robbery Homicide theRobbery Homicide Division which is outof downtown Los Angeles it’s it’shand-picked detectives that have toapply for it and have to have a certainamount of experience and so forth passan interview and everything we get is ittrue they give you a poly for that notfor Robbery Homicide they don’t okay dofor a narcotics wife or a narcotics jobI heard that I thought that was weirdPauline cops like on the job it is it’sit’s I’ve never I’ve never taken apolygraph I’ve given them to a ton ofpeople but I’ve never I say give them Imean I had them given you know right butyeah for narcotics and I think forcertain other undercover typeassignments you know they’re prettysecretive but not for robbery/homicideopen anyway Robbery Homicide Divisiongetting back to that has a homicidesection homicide special section robberyspecial section and a Sex Crimes sectionnow the detectives assigned of thosesections of Robbery Homicide havecitywide jurisdiction basically they cantake cases from wherever they want theyalso are designated by the chief ofpolice to handle certain crimes and it’susually you know VIP type thingshigh-profile those sort of deals okaycrimes against police officers okaythat’s interestingJake can you think back and rememberyour first hot call you responded towhen you’re young patrol officer I canand I think I only had my firstassignment was Hollywood division inJanuary of 1976 when I graduated fromthe 5-month Academy at that time I wentto what that we callmorning watch at that time which wasessentially midnight to 8:00 11:00 atnight 7:00 in the morning something likethat and as a 21 year old kid it waskind of a shock for me because I grew upin the San Fernando Valley never beensouth of the Hollywood Hills yeah yougrew up kind of on a farm right no notreally but it was I mean it was a halfacre my dad and I did raise cattle andstuff like that yeah okay I have anunusual upbringing for a city kid but mydad was an old Missouri farm boy andthat’s cool I used his own animals weyou know we ate our animals and exceptour dogs of course but it was great itwas a unique sort of a thing Moses coolsthe kids I went to school with though Imean probably 99% of them were neverexposed to that kind of stuff rightwe’re just regular tract homes kind ofthings you know but but anyway so uh thethe call we got came out as a 415 manwith a gun meaning for 15 is the PenalCode section for disturbing the peacecausing some sort of a problem and youknow obviously somebody had called insaying this guy had a gun so when we getthere and I mean again this is my firstor second night in a division working asa real police officer now Wow and it isamazing I don’t care how muchplay-acting you do in a police academynothing prepares you for the real dealyou know I mean not in reality it’s itgives you a foundation but you have toget the experience from there and I’msure any police officer would tell youthat sure you know that as well yeah butanyway what it turned out to be we wereconfronted by the the person who wasdescribed in the call he had ahold ofand he looked like a longtime criminalex-con he just had that look you knowkind of like he grew up out in theMojave Desert somewhere and crawled outfrom underneath a rock you know and outof some bar it was some bar and he had ahold of a transvestite and there wassome sort of kind of a fight going onokay and I’m following a we deploy I Igot on the passenger I get out deploythe shotgun and you know we’re both mypartis ordering him to drop whatever it ishe has we couldn’t see I couldn’t seeanything at that point I never did see agun and then I heard something metal andI mean I’m getting very close if the guydoes the wrong thing because he’sdescribed to have a gun in the way he’sacting very irrational very aggressivedidn’t know if he was going to harm theperson that he had a hold of or try toharm us or what but I heard somethingmetal hit a bumper of a car that he wasstanding next to yeah like I said hekind of had the person he he had as ahostage if you want to go that routebetween us but when he became visible tome and I could see his hands they wereclearly nothing in him and as it turnedout he had dropped a knife he had aknife not a gun okay and from that Ilearned that when people want the policeto respond real quick they say he’s gota gun no and that just happens so a guylittle yeah I mean it just it’s thereality of police work as I’m sure youknow so I mean I’m glad I didn’t have toshoot the guy but in reality if I had toit was you know it could have happenedyeah I must have been I can’t imaginewhat’s going through your head thesecond night on the job we’re gonnashotgun pointed at a guy yeah I mean ashotgun was not unfamiliar to me becauseI’ve been hunting since I was a kid whenshotguns but to point it at anotherhuman being and I’m not a I mean I wasin the Air National Guard but I didn’tdo any combat time and sure to point itat another human being was somethingaltogether different for me you knowimagine what did you guys carry for umyou’re doing slugs or buckshot or doublelot buck okay four rounds a double-aughtbuck we carried the shotgun unloadedwith four rounds in the magazine backthen so when you got out you chamberedaround it if you were gonna deploy theshotgun gotcha so the buckshot you’renot uh it’s not exactly precision ifyou’re if you’re not close enough noit’s not and a and I recall thestatistics back then most of ourshootings with shotguns were missesbecause officers incorrectly thoughtthat they could just kind of point inthe general direction and let it go ohreallyyeah if you’re close like mu and me aresitting right now as I’m sure you knowyou’ve got a little pattern coming outfor several feet that’s about thediameter of maybe a quarter right that’stwice that so you can easily misssomebody sure you know how it works Jakecan you describe or tell us about themost bizarre thing you dealt with on thejob well there was a lot of bizarrestuff but what the worst thing I everhad to deal with was a quadruplehomicide that I was one of the two leadinvestigators on 1002 it it’s a longlong convoluted story of course but verycomplicated but to boil it down formembers of the same family a HinduIndian family a 16 year old girl her 18year old brother their aunt who theyconsidered to be like a mother mm-hmm noI take that back it was their mother Iapologize and the grandmother we’re allbound Wow and burned to death inside ofa home up in the Hollywood Hills andwhen my partner and I got assigned thecase I mean it was a big call out therewas a you know a lot of specializedpeople out there and you know forensicsand fire and all that kind of stuff andI can’t imagine that crime scene it cameout as a house fire I mean started outas a house fire there was news footageof it and the husband who had come homeand discovered this fire was obviously aprime suspect right from the startbecause he just didn’t happen to bethere and so forth but long story shorthe had nothing to do with itit all turned out to be related to abusiness dispute that this family washaving with a two Hindu Indian brothersthat they considered to be friends or atleast associates that they could workthis little situation they had out andthe whole dispute was over a piece ofland not much bigger than the typicaltract homes driveway it all had to dowith access to both both parties hadhotels in Studio City okay which is avery lucrative place to have hotelsobviously it’s near downtown Los Angelesit’s near Studio CityI mean it’s near universal Studios whichis a very popular tourist attraction thevictim family’s hotel was a decent hotelyou would take your family there thesuspects hotel the two brothers wereinvolved in this and there was a thirdparty also you wouldn’t you wouldn’t becaught dead there it was a dump you knowand both parties wanted to remodel theirhotels I mean there were there wasmillions of dollars virtually at stakeokay and they had found out during theirupgrade proposal that they there was apiece of land accessible to was actuallycity property that the suspects familyhad kind of claimed way back when sothat that was it I know it’s kind of ashort explanation but that was the wholenucleus of the dispute and Nathe to thevictim’s family they thought they wereworking it out civilly they were havingcourt proceedings and the the woman ofthe victims family Geeta Kumar was hername she was handling this business dealfor the victim’s family which offendedthe two males involved in the suspect ofthe suspects because in their cultureyou know women are second-class citizensand they shouldn’t be doing quoteunquote man’s business as to how theyput it long story short they had apending hearing coming up in court whichin hindsight the victim’s familyprobably would have been victorious onand that would have given them theaccess they needed it would have causedthe two suspects problems in enlargingtheir hotel so after a couple ofattempts to scare him to death to gethim to move out of the country orsomething that which didn’t work theyultimately went up and and murderedthese people and you know it was uh wethree days into it it was a completewhodunit we you know the motive did notbecome clear for this until you know thefamily the the surviving family membersnever pointed towards the you know thetwo thugs that actually ended up doingit really so they didn’t think they werenever stoop to that no I mean look at ityou know they’re they’re they’re allHindu Indians you know they had thatbond between them and they thought thatwe’re working this out I mean they theyhad hotels right next to each other theysaw each other almost on a daily basisand so to them it was just somethingthey had to figure out and theymentioned it kind of almost in passingas as anything that’s going on in theirlife you know but we got a break threedays into it and from there led to awiretap a lot of surveillance but whatwas the break the break was actually aone of the thugs that had beencontracted by these killers to go up andinitially scare these people to deathtry and get them to move out of thecountry or also they didn’t dothemselves they hired no they did do itultimately did do it themselves but theytried to do it using other people tobegin with okay they paid to differentgroups of people to go up and put thefear of God into these people andhopefully would just leave the countrythey had the victim’s family had beenrobbed years and years ago when theyfirst came to this country and they’dbeen tied up and it was a you know realscary situation for him so I think theythought the suspects thought thishappens to him again they’ll justthey’ll just take their bags and go ohgoodnessafter that didn’t work then the murderoccurs that you know the two the twobrothers that had the neighboring hoteland another a third individual well oneof the one of the thugs he was an XMongol gang member motorcycle gangmember was watching the news and he sawthis news footage and he recognized thehouse as one that he had been contractedto go up to now this guy’s not you knowmotorcycle Mongol gang members aren’tknown to be cooperative with the policeyeah and he was not anxious to becooperative with the police in fact hedidn’t want to be but he couldn’t handlethe fact that they were putting out thatthere were two kids murdered in thiscrime so we had some kind of morals hehad he had a heart underneath it allyeah so he contacted a newsman that wasan ex LAPD sergeant who I happened toknow and said hey iced are you out thereat this crime scene you know so to speakand yeah so he they met he met with himand said I got some information for youbut I don’t want to meet I’m not gonnatalk to the police so he went and metwith this news man it was his name isrod Bernsen I think he’s still a newsbroadcaster somewhere but anyway so hehe tracked me down asked me if I wasworking that case because he knew I wasworking Robbery Homicide and it wentfrom there we equals Bernsen coax thisguy and his friend to meet with us whenafter we met with him we kind of gainedtheir trust a little bit but it was along long haul to get all theinformation we neededyou know ya know like the investigationI mean we made an arrest about threemonths later which was very rewarding tome because I got you know my partner andI both got to be friends with thisfamily I mean they were nice peoplegreat people generous people you knowand and they unlike most the murdersthat happened in at least in the city ofLos Angeles I can’t speak for the restof the country but a lot of murdervictims have something to do that lendsto their demisethey’re either dope dealers their gangmembers they’re robbers whatever itmight be right you don’t have a ton ofinnocent people for lack of a betterword getting murdered I mean I don’tknow what the percentages are and theyalways put that in the news to makepeople feel better they always say thiswas target violence yeah and of coursenow and then when you hit you have yourgang shootings and stuff some poorinnocent person standing across thestreet catches a bullet those thingshappen of course but typically themurders in Los Angeles or criminalversus criminal and but again not alwaysyou have your jewelry store robberiesand things like that were you know themerchant is murdered right but this onethese these people had nothing to dowith there with that lent to their deathand they were nice people good people Imean living the American dream they camehere from Indiawith nothing and they had becomemillionaires through the hotel businessWow and and they were just and he had asixteen year old girl which at that timelooked like a darker skinned and darkerhair version of my daughter Oh who wasonly two years older than her at thattime yeah it was nightmarish to say theleastI mean I wanted to you know I I neverwanted to solve a crime as bad as I didthat one you want to solve them all butwe we got lucky you know we were veryfortunate and there’s now two out of thethree of the individuals of dinner arein death row the third one is doing 15to life or something like that okayit was long hollow I learned a lot fromthat case and I still keep in touch withwith the Kumar family to this day Wowyeah I’m sure you guys forms a real bondover solving that they are yeah you doyou do I mean I don’t know how a lot ofother folks handle it but you knowinvestigating homicides you you can’thelp but get you know your heart goesout to the to the victims families andthat’s in my mind that’s where myobligation came in was you’re the spokesfirst of all you’re a spokesperson forthe for the dead you know and you’re thevictims families advocate you knowbecause you can’t just do your job at aneight-hour day and go home you know it’sa right and around-the-clock wheneveryou’re needed whatever you can do kindof thing and it’s rewarding it’schallenging but it’s extremely rewardingthat that was my I mean I had a lot ofprobably had I don’t know probably ahundred or somurrs that I investigated as one of thelead detectives and easily a couplehundred more than that as as some partof the investigation you know is thatrightbut that stands out I mean there’s thatsince I’m good with quadruple homicidethat’s yeah there it is very rare Ithink the last quadruple homicide la hadwas in was the Hollywood Hills murdersinvolving the porn star Johnny JohnnyHolmes oh yeahwe’re back in this not 60s but a70s probably middle 70s that’s the lastquadruple and you mentioned they peoplehiring someone to murder someone isthere what was the what’s what is itgoing rate back then do you know or doyou know what the when I was curiouswhat people put on human life I had onemurder-for-hire where the the personthat contracted the murder paid thekiller four thousand dollarswell that’s short money it is you knowand it’s uh that’s actually quite a bitfor a lot of murder-for-hirebecause they’re you know yeah I mean alot of your contract killers or eithergang members or you know they’re notthey don’t go to Disneyland to find acontract killer people are I think whenthey think contract killer in my mindanyways they have like a you know Armanisuit on leather gloves and anine-millimeter the silencer right theseare not that’s not the case nottypically here in Los Angeles you knowright I’m not saying those things don’toccur but a lot of your contractkillings are you know an angry wife thatgoes to a local bar starts asking aroundor or vice versayou know that kind of thing and it’susually somebody that knows somebodythat knows somebody you know I meantypically go like that I understand theact of murder like murdering someone Ithink anybody’s been in a fightunderstands murdering something like Ican understand how it happens in theheat of the moment you kill somebodysure but to to premeditatein and to hire someone is so in sociallykids it’s so sick I can’t fathom it Imean that you know there there’s been alot of these types of cases but if youremember that dr. Jeffrey MacDonaldmurders back in 1969 in Fort Bragg NorthCarolina okay army doctor he was a greenberet he’s still in prison of this dayJeffrey MacDonald’s his name there was abook written on it I can’t remember thename of the book was written by a guynamed Joel MacDonald great book I meanit outlines the case this doctor Armydoctor murdered his wife and his twodaughters you know and in probably whatwas a fit of rage more than likely he’llever know cuz he won’t even admit doingit he then stabbed himself strategicallyin a place where he knew he wouldultimately survive but it would lookthe stage that he meanoh wanted it tolook he patterned it after the Mansonyou know murders in 69 even describessome floppy hatted hippie girl that cameinto the house and you know the wholedeal and and I mean I had a my oldestagain my oldest daughter at that timewas the same age as as that histwo-year-old daughter and he went intoafter killing his wife and his olderdaughter who was six he walked into thehis other child’s room got her out ofher crib put her across his lap put hisflannel shirt over her back and stabbedher 42 times with an ice picknow what kind of an animal can dosomething like that I mean you know Ithink and I’d only talk about thisbecause I think I look at people a lotlike my mom and my dad God rest theirsouls they were so naive you know tothem that’s something that you madethere were only happened in movies rightbut people are some people are like thatthey’re out there you know I mean it’sdocumented believe it yeah there’s badthere’s evil up there for sure it’shorrible no it’s horrible you know butanyway back back to you know your rewardas a homicide detective if there is oneis to solve a case like that and bringsome kind of closure for the family whatdid that look like the day you grabbedthe guy how did it go down oh the arrestof the multi-fit uncle elder did you getto do it yourself no we actuallydirected it we had a multi-facetedoperation going on because we had twolocations that we hid actually whathappened was it’s sort of it’s sort ofwent down before we were completelyready for it – we had a wiretap going wehad surveillance crews in place like awiretap on their phone a lot of phonesseveral phones and what happened was thetwo Indian brothers who were who are themain they had the motive to kill the theother family there was a third personinvolved a male Hispanic who he hadcontacts for all these Mongol thugs thatthey tried to hire to get this job donenot to kill him supposedly but to go upand beat him up or scare him robbed himdo whateverand get him to try and move out of townconveniently right before their courttrial was their trial was coming up sothey’d be the winners by default youknow but he he they we could tell bywhat we were hearing on the wiretapsthat they were now going to kill himbecause they were afraid he was going toget weak and and rat which in effect hehad done but he wasn’t he had given uspieces of things that we knew fit it’stoo too lengthy to go back into detailbut he had the vehicle that we actuallycaptured on a video up at the crimescene okay with had they had taken thelicense plates off and so he had someskin in the game here he did Oh big timehe was at the scene he was he was aparticipant in the murders but when wearrested him and we arrested him firstwe had his jail cell wired of course andwe were listening to him and he startedtalking about you know how he wasentrapped into this thing and he was youknow he was forced to do it and blahblah blah all these kind of things wellprior to that prior to arrest in him thewas obvious that the brothers wereplanning to kill him because we’d beenout to talk to him too many times andthey figured that he would crack so thatplot led him to try and flee and we hadto we had to arrest everybody at onetime you know so we had it was in themiddle of a one of our detectivesretirement parties actually happened inthe middle of the night no really yeah Iwas about ten o’clock at night and so wehad to send crews out to two differentlocations we had to you know have himpicked up it all kinds of things youknow those things uh it kind ofspontaneously combusted if you will Igot you but it all it all went well itwent goodWow so there these these two brothers dothey have a history of crime or is thistheir first caper you know is no theywell the one brother had one arrest fora battery you know he had punchedsomebody in the and a fight or somethingokay the other brother was evil he waspurely evil it was his idea to killeverybody andhe had done exactly the same thing in abusiness dispute with a individualseveral several years prior actuallyabout my memory serves me about 15 yearsprior and he should have gone to prisonhe shot a guy tied up a guy in the houseshot him set the house on fire and lefthim for dead but the guy didn’t die hegot out of his bounds binds and got freeand how does this guy walk in the streetthat’s that’s a good question forwhatever reason and we can neverdetermine his name was Peter GoldmanPeter Goldman was allowed to pleadguilty to some lesser offense now thevictim in that case wasn’t an angeleither he was a criminal as well butnonetheless there’s no way he shouldhave gotten what he was convicted ofultimately and he never went to trial hedid two years in jail two years inprison and that was it he was out holycow so he figured it worked for him onceit can work again the judicial system isamazing because how many people do youknow like good law-abiding people likeuh yeah in your life sure they think ifthey get caught with like a bag of potwhen it was illegal or whatever theythink they think they’re going away surebut then you see the reality of it thatdoesn’t it’s sad I mean the wholejudicial system here especially inCalifornia to me we’re so weak on crimenow about 47 and all these differentthings I mean you know you got a real areal pro criminal element if you willsure run in this whole state basicallyMassachusetts is like the little brotheroh it’s horribleI mean it’s show off and and and and Iknow that the system is extremelyoverloaded you know so they have to pleathese cases out whenever they can thatkind of thing but the cost of that ishaving things like guys like this fallsthrough the cracks and he ends up youknow the reason why these four peopleare dead today it’s disgusting it’sterrifying so much truth I mean so muchtrauma for the family for even for theinvestigators you know that really likeDavis Cotto came on the podcastit was really fun interview I knowDave’s fun yeah but he had um he wastalking about trauma before going tocalls and the one thing that reallybothered him was similar to what you’resaying he had to do a he had to go foran autopsy I think this table sir toview a body uh-huh and it was um a girlhis daughter’s exactly oh boy yeah thatwas the one time in his career hestepped back and felt a little like alittle dizzy in his partner said heywhen we walk outside and yeah I had areal issue with it you know he it got tohim for a couple days he said he wouldcouldn’t stop thinking about it you knowI’ve been to dozens of autopsies and andyou know you get I don’t want to see youget used to him but you get a littlehardened to them but until you’d walk inthere and I mean there’s bodiesvirtually laying everywhere yeah whenyou see a baby when I saw a baby on agurney or a child and I saw enough ofthose I mean you know that that upset mefor a long time too I know where Dave’scoming from you know again you walk inin a you know a gang members all taggedup for whatever is you know that’s notgonna make you cry yeah a child or youknow even a woman anything a young manwhatever it might be you know andthere’s every kind of death in therethat you can immerse traffic accidentvictims there’s sure suicide victims andthere’s murder victims there’s you knowand natural death sometimes I could J Ican’t imagine two city morgue I don’tthink I could handle it oh it’s unreal Ilived a very blessed life where I sawthe dead bodies I saw growing up werealways super old I’m often with makeupon you know like that yeah so when I wasthe police how the first time I sawsomeone younger dead yeahit rattled me to the it really upset meyeah well I can imagine I remember thefirst again I was only about 23 yearsold first policeman that I saw getkilled oh you know I he wasn’t dead whenI saw him but he looked like he he wasdead they pulled him out of his car torush him to the hospital and and thatwas the most I mean it was almost like aout-of-body experience right kind offeel the blood draining from your bodyand it’s not something I had reallybraced myself for very well yeah youknow when you’re working homicide aftera first of off your work at homicide inLos Angeles you’re probably already aseasoned detective let alone policeofficer you’ve seen alot of death you’ve seen a lot of bloodright not gonna be a whole lot that youhaven’t seen but but when you go to ascene like well you just got throughtalking about and you see these peoplethat are burned beyond recognition andthe way they were the way they died andthen when you have one of the threecriminals that did it describe the wholething to you because that was part ofour case I’ll tell you man it’s you knowit’s not for everybodythat’s for sure I had a tough time withit you know but again you keep goingyou’re motivation to keep going is is tobring some closure to that to the familyyeah absolutely it’s about you know andagain that that that makes you feelreally good when you can when you can dothat yeah fortunately we don’t alwaysget to do it but and you know it’s justpart of the part of the deal but yourheart just you know you break it breaksyeah heart breaks for for anybody youknow I remember one of my most actuallyone of my most besides that one one ofthe homicides I had that brought me themost personal pleasure to solve was aSkid Row literally murder a dispute overa suitcase or something and one you knowone transient stabbed another to deaththat’s gonna be so hard to solve oh itis I mean you know they don’t liveanywhere all you you’ve got 500 peoplestanding out there and nobody sawanything you know that’s how it rollsand then if you do get somebody to seesomething good luck keeping track ofthem you’re better off if they getarrested for something or in jail leastyou know where they’re at right butanyway we got lucky on that one as welland the victim’s mother who was from Ithink she they were from Jamaica sheoperated a furniture store down in SouthLos Angeles and when it was all said anddone she gave me a big hug and saidshe’d never forget me and you knowbecause she didn’t I don’t think sheexpected for us to care because her sonwas a quote-unquote nobody he’s a humanbeingyou know yeah well I don’t like it whenI hear police officers anywhere you knowget maligned for not caring for beingcallous I mean you have to laughsometime to keep from cryingsure yeah you know how that goes yeahbut they’d a Lowe’s humorthey don’t think police officers carethey need to look a little deeper youknow absolutely what do you do for likewe’re talking about that how it affectsyou there how what do you do to tounwind like when you were when you’re onthe job well I’ve always been intoexercise a lot you know I mean I was arunner back in my younger days I can’trun anymore because I’ve got to fakeknees now but running was always a bigoutlet for me they’re saying that islike the number one thing exercise Ithought it was yeah I thought it wasyeah I if I was kind of one of thoseaddicted runners if I didn’t run thatday I was a miserable human being to bearound okay not always but I try to doyou know three five seven miles a dayand it just you know runner’s high is areal phenomenon I’m sure haven’t felt ina long time now I ride a bike you knowor elliptical machine or whatever butexercise was a big thing and my familywas the other thing you know I mean II’ve always advocated especially with Idon’t know about females I can’t speakfor them but for male officersespecially the young ones you know it’svery easy to get caught up in a heylet’s go out and have a drink after workyeah let’s go do this and go do that thenext thing you know alcohol could be acould be your outlet as opposed to afaithful loyal companion you know rightwife or whatever and and then when yourkids come along I mean that personally Imean when I retired I remember saying tothe people that were there that look Iwill I want my identity to be as a as afather and a grandfather and a husbandnot not as who I was on LAPD that’s gonethat’s done you know and add that thatwas my balance you know you know I knewplenty of guys that you know slept ateand drank police work 24 hours a dayyeah that’s those are the ones thatquite often crack you know because youhave to have an outlet somehow right orthey can retire and drop dead becauseit’s yeah I like to fish I like to huntall things outdoors you know campingwhen I met you youabout a year and a half ago and uh youdefinitely have a for an LA guy you havea country vibe – you know – yeah I beatthat – my upbringing you know like Isaid that’s cool I had a very uniqueupbringing as a kid in the law was bornin 54 but you know the most of the lifeI can remember it was in the 60s youknow what and like I say my dad and Iraise cattle we butchered cattle youknow ate our cattle and and we had thatkind of farm life going on I hadresponsibilities and chores and a lot ofthings I wish kids could get these daysabsolutely I think there’s a realhealthy side to all of that absolutelyyou see where your food comes from andsure yeah and cycle life the whole thingsalutely manic kids these days want tosit and look at telephones or iPads orwhatever the hell it might be and that’sfine they need to have that technologyside as well nowadays yeah but it’d benice to blend it a little bit – yeah Iknow I I get I like to expose mygrandkids and their friends to as muchof the outdoors as I can anytime I canno I mean I see sometimes I see or someposts and social media and you you do itright man you’re like out there by onthe plains driver warning drive thetruck and then you take the trailer offthe truck and hook it to thefour-wheeler and go even further it’sawesome man it is it’s fine I love theoutdoors like I said I can’t get toomuch of the mountains or Lakes the oceanwhatever you know I I’d live out thereif I could feasibly do it find you asmall town you could be the sheriffthere all yeah I be I be Barney five rowJ do you have any parting wisdom to giveto someone who wants to be a policeofficer or maybe young officers on thejob candidates you know police worktoday in 2018 is is so different thanwhat I did back in this 70s 80s and evenin the 90s you know the the crux of mycareer but everything is perspective nowI investigate backgrounds for people whowant to be police officers right now I’ma sign of the fire side but either wayand I always tell them the same thinglook you have to be so much smarterand I was in 1978 or something you knowI mean for a mistake that I would makeof the heart nowadays as a policeofficer you could end up being put injail or lose your home in a lawsuit orwell it might be you know I mean thereused to be some wiggle room for error inpolice work and again I’m only speakingfor the Los Angeles area because I neverbeen a policeman anywhere else andhaven’t really lived in any other partof the country it just so happens to bethe most heart one of the most harshlycriticized absolutely boy it’s a bigdepartment it’s you know the the LATimes Los Angeles Times has been anenemy as far as I’m concerned of LAPDfor ever since I was a young policeofficer and they make good stories Imean let’s face it a police scandalsells it’s it’s like sex drugs and rockand roll man sure nothing more peoplewant to hear about but my best advicefor them is look if you want to do thisgo out and investigate it if you thinkyou want to do it you know go out and goon ride-alongs the department has aprogram for that now they have thementor program here of course for youknow people who want to come on and andget to know what it is about becauseit’s not anything like what you see onTV you know you’re gonna spend a lot ofsleepless nights when you get off at 4o’clock in the morning you have to be acourt at 8 o’clock in the morning youknow and that involves going home andgetting dressedputting your suit on and coming back tocourt it’s not glamorous like they makeit look on TV they can’t show yourreality on TV sure but if you’re gonnado it be faithful to that badge don’tdon’t tarnish that badge you know I haveabsolutely no sympathy in my heart forany police officer that turns into acriminal and thinks they can hide behinda badge as far as I’m concerned thereshould be a very special law for thosefolks the few that I’ve known in my lifeor known of and as far as I’m concernedthey shouldn’t be breathing you know Imean to gain the Pope to be in aposition of public trust and to violatethat to me as as as serious a crime asyou can commit whatever it might bewhether you’re stealing their money yourwhatever it might be I don’t care youknow it’s so be faithful to it you knowbut it’s a great careerLAPD has so many things to offer youknow so does a lot of these a lot ofpolice departments I’ve got a son-in-lawwho’s a police officer on a small agencyhe’s still gotten to do a variety ofthings and he loves it you know so it’srewarding it’s challenging if you if youdon’t want to be criticized go deliverwater for Sparkletts or somethingbecause you’re gonna get criticizedyou’re gonna criticize by your own andeverybody out there so it comes with theterritory you’re gonna get sued you’regonna be witness in court look at it asa challenge take it as a challenge andget as good as you can get at ityou know do a lot of it that’s how youget good at it it’s a great career yeahI definitely I still recommend it forpeople okay despite the challengesthat’s awesome Jay those are great wordsof wisdom I really appreciate you comeon the podcast I’m glad to do it for youSteveanytime glad glad you had me it was funhey guys thanks for checking out thepodcast if you’ve been enjoying thepodcast and you want to show somesupport for the showyou could go to iTunes and clickSubscribe rate and review the show thatwould be fantastic if you want to reachout and ask any questions or if you’re alaw enforcement officer or a retired lawenforcement officer and you’d like to beinterviewed that would be great too youcan reach me at things police C atgmail.com again thank you for checkingout the show and I’ll see you next time
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
