In this episode Lindy Gligorijevic (LAPD D3 retired) pulls no punches telling us her journey to becoming a Homicide Detective for LAPD. The 1980’s were a challenging time for a woman looking to become a police officer and Lindy navigated these waters expertly. She is now the Chief Investigator for the Tulare County DA’s Office. Lindy is also a highly rated author with two amazing novels available for purchase!
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Background Consultation
Book 1 Hold Fast
Lindy’s Books!
Book 2 Bell Lap
this is things police seize first-handaccounts with zeros Steve hey guyswelcome to the podcast that interviewsactive and retired police officers abouttheir most intense bizarre and sometimeshumorous moments on the job I am SteveGould and with me as always is KenRoybal hello Ken hello hello how are yousir ah very goodjust started working out you knowgetting my workout in and not today butnow I’m feeling pretty good you work outget the blood flowing it feel prettygood today to say you sound prettyripped today I you know yeah I’m feelinggood man excellent today we have we haveactually this is this is gonna be agreat one cuz she is she when she leftLAPD she was a d3 which is a supervisingdetectiveshe worked homicide a bunch of otherassignments she was there from 1985 to2004 her name is Lynn d-league or Javikand we will get clarification on thelast name because it’s a littledifficult yeah and it looks likeaccording to all the inner websitesshe moved over to a DA’s office too soshe still I think she’s still at itthere yeah yeah yeah we’re dealing witha heavy hitter here she’s a gun chiefinvestigator for the DA so I’m I’mimagining she has some pretty incrediblestories working LAPD that one just asuggestion you and I really aren’tworthy compared to her resume maybe weshould just let her just talk yeah I’mgonna I’ll edit most of our comments outpost it’s pretty good man she’s got TVshows based on her book man I’m readyyeah she’s got two books hold fast andbell lap 2016 based on a couple LAPDhomicide detectives fiction so it’s theyget rated really highly so yeah I’mexcited let me um let me just dial herin ah seamlessly whoa Lindywelcome to things police see thank youfor coming on oh thank you for having meI’m Steve and you’re onalso with Ken hi Steven Ken hi how areyou Lindy I’m goodwe were just reviewing your resume herevery impressive 1985 2004 LAPD from P 3lead officer to D 3 supervisingdetective very cool and you have youhave some books we need to talk aboutand most importantly seems like you havesome pretty crazy stories there’s toomuch there’s too much about Lindy on theinternet I can’t possibly have this islike a college course that would take atleast six months to to get to know Lindythis is good stuff thank you love tohave an overqualified guest the bestyeah so Lindy you were you started in1985 you want a police academy for LAPDand you came up through Patrol so p1 p2p3 then Pete then a lead officer is p3plus one they call it sometimes rightyes one and that was in 77th divisionwhat did they do exactly because I’veheard this heard that heard of thatposition several times when I worked atbackgrounds could you just explain whatthey dooh it’s an awesome job the Sierra doctoris responsible for a car so on the LAPDit’s reporting districts and you have 24hours a day you have patrol officersassigned to a reporting districtdistrict the senior lead officer is thecommunity liaison with that district soyou’re working patrol but you’re alsogoing to block Club meetings you’retalking with the community to find outwhat their concerns are and then you’reable to put some more attention toquality of life issues I mean literallyquality of life issues I remember when Ifirst started in semi seventh divisionwhich is in South Central Los Angelesthe first the first thing my partnerhanded me was boxes of tin foil I saidwhat am i what am I doing with tin foilhe says you got to wrap the Christmasyou have to wrap the palm-treesonblock for all the old ladies it’s aChristmas tradition really mmm yeah so Ihad I got a stapler and I went out andwrapped palm trees and tied red ribbonaround a minute it had been a traditionon this street for 5060 years I don’tknow if they’re still doing it but butthat that’s kind of the elite officersrole is solving real problems and that’ssweet in that story that’s really cool Iknow we can and I worked with the youguys come slows write SLO yeah we workedwith a woman who is uh slow in work Ithink Hollywood but she she loved itthat was like her favorite position andthis was right after the riots and sothat was a community that was notparticularly trusting of the policedepartment and there was a lot ofhealing that had to happen so it it wasa fantastic learning experience and oneof the best times in my career that’sawesome so when you go from anotherquestion for you for myself in theaudience can probably Erin knows thisbut when you go from a p3 or when youget into detectives just fromconversations I’ve had in the past it’sintriguing to me because it’s I meanthere’s got to be a testing process theyobviously might have their eye on you orthey know they’ve an idea you might begood at it like this is this is a rightthere because it sounds like you thinkthat I had a planI had tested for sergeant and I wantedto be a sergeant I loved Patrol I wantedto be a sergeant so the written testcome out up at the same time thesergeant’s the sergeant’s test and thedetective test I did not want to be adetective but I had a girlfriend who waspregnant and she needed a ride cuz shekept throwing up and so I said I’ll takethat stupid detective test because sheneeded a ride and so this is how hemanaged her career we drove down toHollywood perfect high to take the testand I passed it I don’t know how Ipassed it because I didn’t study for itI’m excited for sergeant and then Iwasn’t even going to take the oralinterview because I did not want to be adetectiveOh and my sergeant told me he told meget down there take this down test oryou will not get one day off you wantnext EPokay so I went down and I and I took thetest I felt terrible because it seemedlike these lieutenant that we’re on theoral board we’re really looking forpeople that were dedicated to being adetective I did not want to be adetective sergeant and I did weirdly Idid well and ended that division as adetective one it took me probably I wantto say by the end of the week I wasmadly in love with me whole role ofbeing a detective madly in love with itbut I didn’t think that was gonna likeit going in and I loved every minutewhat year were you in the foothill 9194291943Frank was a seasoned detective when Igot to Wilshire patrol I think in 82something like that and he was alreadygregarious and making a name for himselfback then but we have a united effort toget Frank to agree to come on at somepoint good lyndie when you I heard someof I heard talk of polygraphs when youbecome a detective do you actually isthat just for Robbery Homicide or do youget have to take a polygraphno I may have changed but there wereonly polygraphs for particular positionson on the LAPD and I never had aposition where you needed to take apolygraph that’s so weirdto me they do that like I can’t get overit like you’re already copy made ityou’re sworn in and then they have thespecialty position that they give youand then what if you like bomb thepolygraph that that I knew a guy thatbombed a polygraph he was trying to getinto narcotics and it came backdeceptive on something weird liketransporting dope for sales or somethingand he was devastated because he didn’tdo thatI wanted he went down to iead to open aninvestigation on himself so that hecould clear his name and they told herthere’s no such thing we don’t do thatso no it’s peculiar it’s okay I’vetalked to people about that anybodythat’s been in patrol or anything likethat the polygraph is just a psych thingyou know it just is however you respondto it so I don’t see any cop can pass apolygraph I don’t know I used polygraphdetectives and for me they all may havebeen is a tool to assist with aninterrogation right don’t I don’t put aton of stock in them one way or anotherwhether they were you know I don’t put aton of stock in them except for the factthat they really do aid in aninterrogation yeah we’ve gone throughthis with backgrounds when they addedPolly’s back to the process which isfine I mean but there’s a lot of peoplethat fail the poly that you know we tryand get the information out and it’sgood it’s a good investigative tool andif you’re a good investigator you’ll geta confession out of somebody yeah ohabsolutely absolutelyLindy can you tell us about the firsthot call you responded to well I wasthinking about the first hot call Iresponded to I started my patrol inHollywood and so you know how this iswhen you’re a brand-new police officer Imean just just getting out a roll callfeels like a hot call but hey I wouldhave to say the first really eye-openingcall wasthis is a game back in the 80s so thePalladium we used to have these punkrock concerts and then they would turninto melees just riotous melees and sothe first time I was ever standing in askirmish line I it was a it was amazingbecause these people were lobbyingbottles at us and rocks and we couldn’tmove we couldn’t move until we got theword to move in and the discipline thatit took and I like I’m again I’m a dummyI’m a kid I’m wearing short sleeveswhich I was literally the only onewearing short sleeves why becauseeveryone this was going to happen thatnight and they’re wearing long sleevesI’m wearing short sleeves and I’m beingshards of glass in my forearms as I’mstanding there this is something elseand so finally when we get the word thatwe can move out and start dispersingthis crowd this guy comes at me and Ihit him with a park stroke with my batonand you know the Academy you do nothingbut hit a tire with a baton for hoursand days and days days and you get usedto how that baton bounces back on yourforearm and when you hit a human itfeels different and for the split secondas I my baton hits this guy I’m thinkingthat’s not what I thought this was goingto feel like and it’s kind of surrealbecause you’re in the moment but yetyou’re you’re having this you know thirdparty conversation in your head wellthat’s different because the bodyabsorbs that that blow in a differentway than a tire does so anyway we chaseddown this other guy that’s busting outwindows of cars into a bar and oh thatwas just something trying to drag thisguy out of this bar people on top of usand we get him out and we get him bookedand I go in to to bring the arrestreport to the watch commander and a lotcommander says where’s your thingshappen and from Minnesota I said wellsir I took it off for the riotfell off go talk to your trainingofficer and come back and tell me howwhat happened your nametag okay this iseven more peculiar things I could tellmy training officer I thought he’s gonnahit me you took it off for safekeepinghustle back in and it’s funny becauseyou’re only naive you’re only young onceright how strict that is that’s veryparamilitary LAPD in the 80s was a veryparamilitary I I think that of coursenew generals evolving into somethingelse by then he eighties it really wasand all of my training officers wereVietnam veterans I all of them were thatage and so there were a lot of women andthe men that I worked with were toughguys so I think that I I think I Icouldn’t have done better in terms oflearning I’m picky I’m using into thatshift just like shirt untucked a messjust after running around and wrestlingwith people and yeah yeah Hollywood itwas fun it was really fun I you eitherlove Hollywood or you can’t wait to getout of there and I loved it it was justsuch a crazy place what did you thinkafter your first shift did you thinklike this is for me or did you thinklike holy crap I thought well the firstday of the Academy I thought this isgonna be for me I really did gettingyelled at I love doing hard things andaccomplishing things and then when I gotto Hollywood part of it before youreally start developing your confidenceyou just think can I do this and thenwhen I could do it what I really trulyliked is I liked the variety that youcould start the day off with a car chaseand end it with a mom who’s lost or akid it’s the variety of things thatcould happen in one shift there’snothing likein the world nothing like it in theworld it’s hard work but it’s rewardingwork and the camaraderie which I don’tknow you know I hate to sound again oldbut I don’t know now with the shifts theway they are I hear a lot of talk abouthow it’s not as officers or not as closeas they were is there looking 12-hourshifts now so you don’t have that samecohesiveness you used to have on a watchbut they’re going back to what whatLinney was saying about the 80s when inthe early 80s the officers she’s correctand that there are a lot of Vietnam vetsand just old-school guys that didn’tthink women should be on the job he hasthen I worked for any police officergetting into the into patrol you had toprove yourself and do all that if you’rea male officer for females it was stillit well it seemed like Lindy it seemedlike it was was it the late 70s mid 70swhen females finally got field certifiedyeah and then so there’s these guys Iworked with with officers that came onthe late 50s and early 60s and it was apain it was a pain in the ass thatproved to them that I could do the jobbut for the women had it doubly hardthey were just it they could go and theycould kick somebody’s guy’s ass allacross the street in a fight and they’dstill wouldn’t yeah she still wouldn’tbe out here man and you know it was likethat for her so she had it toughyeah hence not getting the memo aboutthe long sleeves the best you could hopefor which has happened didn’t meanthroughout my career the best she couldhope for is you’re the best femalepolice officer I’ve ever worked with notthe best police officer you never gotthe best police off so you got the bestfemale yeah yeah it is but the otherthing too though you also had shipreally shimmery me these men were alllike my big brothers are my dad theyreally cared about me when I finally gotoff probation you can work a you carwhich is just a report rayon carbonget to be alone and it’s so exciting andI would I would go code six inneighborhoods and I’d see littletaillights of black on the lights justkind of circling around just making sureI was okay they never said anything tome but they knew where I was I don’tknow I I worked with jerks like everyonehas a work with female jerks who workedwith male jerks but by and large I foundthat the men I worked with would give mea shot after I prove myself but I thinkthat’s the same for men or women suredid how okay how is this a PG podcast oran r-rated podcast let her rip so when Iworked rampart division which is anothercrazy place but I was a p2 in rampartand I was a single mom so I was mostlyon day watch that was the best shiftthat worked for me but when I have toget wheeled off of day watch out midp.m. watch worked kind of okay I couldat least get my daughter to uhto a babysitter and so on so I’m not onmid p.m. watching rampart because I’m aghetto gunfighter I’m on BPM because Igot wheeled there they don’t have anywomen on mid pans it’s the fastest watchin the city has the most felony arrestsin the city it’s like go go go and thefirst few months I’m on that watch likenobody talks to me like I have to workwith a probationer because no one willwork with me it was it was pretty roughand I had turned down a guy on a date inthat head that had landed me on the therampart Gazette which is the third stallof the men’s bathroom and yeah yeah theywould bring me in there to show me whatpeople were writing about me but it’sthe usual shit you write about women youknow nothing too creative so this oneofficer I might as well just tell youhis name because it’s a true storyJimmy Simon Ichi who’s the toughest guyin this whycomes in one night and he says my nameis Wilson he says hey Olufsen he wasfuckin everybody on mid PM watch howcome he hadn’t fucked me yet fuckineverybody in alphabetical order I willlet you know he started laughing and hewalks over and calls after that I hadpartners so there’s a there there is a Imean it’s not hazing but there’s adegree of alright are you with us areyou not with us and how do you show youwith somebody you know you got to beable to take a horrible joke you knowdid you ever come across a d3 her namewas race and Kowski sing Kowski thatsounds familiar but she was she was alittle older when she came on the jobbut it was funny I worked with her shewas on on probation this is again in the80s and it was the funniest thing I’venever forgot this when it comes to theto that kind of mentality between menand women and women were just like youcould tell the women a joke and nobodywould be offended and all this type ofthing and I remember one time we weresitting at Detective headquarterswaiting for something and we weretalking and I the conversation turned tosomething like how you know how did youcome to be a police officer and all thatand she said all my life I wanted to bea policeman and she did say a policeofficer she wanted to be a police manand that’s how old-school it was but butI remember the days that that women justwere like the guys you know just smokingand joking and telling jokes and nobodygot offended and you know all that typeof thing was cool how can I put thisit’s if you have the ability to proveyourself you don’t you don’t need a lotof protection but the I remember femalesergeant getting aon my behalf I will call one day and itwas a similar thing the watch commanderhad moved me off my own car my carhe says you’re just lucky you have a joband that you’re not home pregnant andbarefoot I said oh okay well as long asyou’ve explained it then I understand Iwas moved off the car because I didn’thave the seniority it I knew why I wasmoved off the car I was a smartass andhe made a joke back I understood thewhole dynamic but the female sergeantshe beat him and then he was pissed atme but I’m like why would you get me inthis kind of trouble and she says justbecause you can take a job doesn’t meanevery woman can and you have to thinkabout other women that can’t take a jokeI’m like wow no shelling you gotta feelyou got a bill to feel safe with yourco-workers that you can let it rip andpeople aren’t gonna get offended andthey know you well enough that they knowthat you’re not you know you’re not somesexist maniac or something you know Ihad worked with two women back in theEast Coast and they were great they werethey thought it was stupid when wechanged from patrolman to patrol officeryou know they they just kind of got itlike you do them that you know they justtakes a special kind of person to be acop and if you’re if you’re not thatkind of person it can be well you knowyou’re gonna you’re gonna leave thatstation and you’re gonna go out into aworld that’s literally designed to killyou and so if you can’t take a jokeright it’s more important yeah yeahLindy can you describe the strangest ormost bizarre call you dealt with and I’msure you have a plethora to choose frombut I do have lots of strange onesespecially in Hollywood because in the80s Hollywood was was just filled withso many strange strange people andstrange things we went on a suicide callup in the hills above Hollywood and veryfancy house and woman had killed herselfand so we were had to wait for thecorner that’s clearly a suicide and mypartner could only stand so much of thisgoofball guy that was this lady’s Iguess her boyfriend so he says I’m gonnawait down at the bottom of the hill forthe corner the corners never gonna beable to find this place awesomeI’ll stay here with the weird man mybest stories are when I’m a boot andbeing taken advantage of so my partnergoes with the with the very weird Idon’t know like a movie producer type ofguy and he’s crying and telling me howmuch he loves his girlfriend blah blahblah and then he says hold on a second Igot to show you something I got to showyou something I got to give yousomethinghe takes off I’m thinking oh it’sawesome he’s gonna come back with aknife or a gun and I’m alone and where’smy partner he comes back and he’s gotthis velvet bag that looks like a secretthe Seagrams gin bag and this is thisbeautiful glass table we’re sitting atand he dumps out on this table a bagfull of sapphires and all the sapphiresgo bouncing all over this table the mostgorgeous stones I’ve ever seen in mylife and all I can think of is when thisguy Sobers up he’s gonna say I stole oneof this stupid cellphone pictures so I’mI’m ticketing him to gather thesesapphires and then we line all thesapphires up and it’d make him count allthe sapphires and this is how manysapphires you had yes yes yes and putthe sapphires down cool put thesapphires back and you’re where have yougot the sapphires from this is this ishow I get fired as what I’m thinking heis gonna accuse me of stealing sapphireshe didn’t he didn’t but he stalked meforever he kept coming into Hollywoodstation trying to find me which you knowheexactly this is how we meet we need foryour TED Conference Buffy you try togive me sapphires but that is kind ofwhat what a night in Hollywood could belike sounds like he had a little crushthere’s it used to be a big joke in LAPDin the locker room so there be someonewould would accidentally leave like abuck on the on the bench and it wouldsit there for days and days and daysbecause they judge that’s a plant I isplanning me you take that dollar andyou’re getting fired retired LAFD firecaptain and I think their full-time jobwas jokes on each other but they wouldhot glue coins on the sidewalk to see ifthey could get people to try to pick upcoins that’s awesome you know so we dohave a meet-cute story celebrate inApril with the toaster red Lindy can youtell us about one of your most intensemoments my most intense moments reallycame when I was a homicide detectivethose are the ones that really stay withme as intense and I’m just with the deadbodies but also with doing thenotifications to family members and soon so the most terrifying one or I don’tknow terrifying is the right word butthe most tragic one was a woman namedLisa Kerr whose boyfriend had set her onfire while she was still alive in thebackseat of her car and it was a smallcar and I had to get in there with herand the corner investigator to get herout and her body was disintegrating inour hands because it poured acceleranton it as a detective yeah yeah and allthat was left was the side of her facethat was on her purse and some of herhair and I will never forget holding ahuman body and having it fall apart inmy hands that that was but that’s prettyintenseholy cow so he locked or somehow he hadchoked her in her apartment and thoughthe had killed her and put her in her carand she was unconscious drove aroundwent to her she worked at a beautysupply store went there and got someasitane and then drove her car off ofthe freeway into some into the side ofthe freeway poured a stain on her andlit her on fire the car and ran but shehad on my heart hope is that she wasstill unconscious but she was breathingbecause she had set in their esophagus[Music]and that was I mean this guy must havebeen kind of out of his mind if hethought he was gonna get away he was asoccer guy and had stopped her and whenthey broke up and just wouldn’t let itgo and she was um was she famous or wasshe just like no okay just a prettyyoung girl hey Lindy for patrol guys youknow the Patrol guys get to callhomicide whatever you go and you securethe scene and and start all that stuffand then they go off and they go do theLord’s work somewhere elseafter that but for investigators fordetectives I was never in detectives butit seems like you you take those casesand you just study them and you studythe killer and you have to look at thosethose those homicide photos and all thatdoes that do you take anything away fromthat where it doesn’t bother you todaysome of these cases it’s all still stillbother me I still when I’m on the 210freeway I think of a woman’s body thatwe found that we weren’t able to solveher murder torso no they stay with me umthe the hardest thing is I think it’sall hard but the autopsies weredifficult to get used to just seeingwhat happens to a human body and thenthat kind of makes you have a commitmentto to a mom you know where a dad orhusband or a wife that I’m gonna findout who did this to your loved onemm-hmm yeah that’s that’s difficult toto think about because I’ve seen some ofthose some of those murder books theycall them yeah and there’s some awfulawful things people do to other peopleyes yes and there is there’s always thatpotential of like losing bits of yourown humanity because you’re around justso much bad stuff in Foothill divisionwhen I worked for Frank Bishop this isin the 90s a lot of gang activityso we averaged about between 30 and 40homicides a year in one division in thenortheast part of the Sacramento Valleyand that’s not even the fastest divisionin the city or wasn’t the fastest howmany homicides would they give adetective to handle at one time weaveraged whoever I was partnered with wewould average about between 10 and 12 ayear Wowyeah obviously they take a lot more timein detail thanany other crime yeah yeah and thenyou’re you’re also hopefully going tocourt so you in between solving newthings you’re testifying in court on oldthings ago againokay I was just to say I’ve alwayswondered about the the uncle detectiveswhere did you have to stay close to homecan you explain a little bit for thelisteners about that scene on call wellagain before there was cell phones soyou had a pager that would that would gooff and so you had that pager on you allof the time so if you’re on call you’reon call for an entire week and and ifyou work someplace like Foothilldivision you’re likely going to getcalled so we typically didn’t go to themovies or plan in big events when I wason call but to this day I’m stillfinding out things about my daughtervolleyball games I missed and you knowI’ve missed a lot when I when I was adetective because as soon as you wereasleep your phones right or your pagergoes off or your home phone goes off andyou’re gone you’ve gone for 72 hourssometimes and the way LAPD works is youhave to show it usually people don’tmurder other people like during regularwork hours it’s in the middle of thenight so you show up you have to show upon scene just like fresh just like firstthing in the morning you know and youhave to look sharp and and all that andyeah yeah it’s no Columbo looking stuffbut yeah I always admired that about thedetectives Lindy when you we become adetective what did they did they I meanobviously they sent you some kind oftraining certain many hours or was itall on the job no you you go todetective schools and then in Californiathere’s a great program called the I CIRobert Pressley Institute of CriminalInvestigations and it’s it’s the ideabehind it was to standardize trainingthroughout the state of California andso there’s a series of verses series ofclasses you can go to from burglary therape to murder that way and then there’salso other specialized training you cango to interrogation and so on but I Idon’t know how I lucked into this I gotto go to the very very first I CIhomicide training woman who let a womando that it was it was LAPD and Elias ohand the funny thing is is that on theLAPD it’s probably changed but on LAPDwe did not seek out training from anyoneelse we were the LAPD we trained otherpeople you know is very incestuous soall our training came from RobberyHomicide Division for instance so youknow you and you trained someone else itwasn’t it was very insular and so whenthey had their very first homicide classtwo-week class I got to go and Elia soguys all on one side and they weresuspicious of alien so like every otherperson so you had to be unattainable andsitting in between two people that werenot from your department so that wasfunny and then it was very eye-openingbecause I had only been trained byrobbery/homicide guys who only come totalk to you because they’ve solvedserial killers no telling how wonderfulthey are this was different because someof the instructors taught from aposition of making mistakes and therewas a guy who had come in right from ahomicide and the instructor was kneelingso guy says come on come up tell uswhat’s going on and it was they had beenall over the only times it was a guyI think wasn’t downy I think without herdownythere’s somewhere out in LSO’s territoryhe had had he had been having sex withhis secretary on a hotel bath balconyand claimed that she had fallen off thebalcony and died when he was having sexwith her that was in a City of IndustryI think there you go detective it’scoming off of that case and they had hadno GPL oh they had had some my name isCaltech they were dumping weights off ofthe balcony to see if if the human bodywould have gone that far and so it was avery interesting case we all knew thatit was on the front page of The Timesevery day and this detective got up andstart talking encase but he startedtalking about what where he had screwedup and he’s thin he’s not even thinkingand he’s just talking he’s like I letthat guy back in the room I love him andI’m gonna let him in and and as he’stalking I find myself taking notesbecause now I’m learning somethingbecause it’s very difficult to learnsomething from somebody who solveseverything I just got to the scene andthey knew the killer must have been youlearn from other people’s mistakes andit was really fascinating and it stayedwith me and so when I went on to teachhomicide for I see I I only talk fromthe mistake angle I never talked aboutsome great hunch I had I talked aboutmistakes I made because that’s your giftback to people is here whatever you dodon’t do this a great plan how you learnyeah and I met I met a guy in famigliaso and he and I became like secretfriends because you can’t ever askanybody a question because you don’twant to appear like you’re stupid so ifwe would call each other and be stuffedin a locker what would you dothat’s really a Steve see if you wannaknow how old-school Lindy is she’s soold school that you don’t hear you don’thear Elias Oh anymore because Elias Ohstands for Los Angeles Sheriff’s Officeand one time I was talking to someoneback I want to say back in the mid 90sand I said Elias oh and they looked atme really and dignity and they said nohe said okay yes anyway said the Eliasoh guy was over there I mean it was likeinsulting to say Elliot is so nighttimeyou bring back memories Lindy sayingoffice is to clean the whole departmentnow come on Lindy can you warm thecockles of our heart okay so this storyreflects poorly on me but it’s it’s itwas when I was working rampartI was working Thanksgiving and rampartis the part it’s part of the city of LosAngeles it’s only 12 by 12 square milesand in the 80s there were three hundredsixty-five thousand people living inthat 12 by 12 square foot area most wereall Salvadorian Central American Koreanand Cuba’s are Mario Leto’s folks werethere as well so Ram pier was a veryviolent place and it was a place thatdid not have roots it’s not like East LAwhere generations of people have livedin the same house rampart was transitoryand it was really violent and reallydifficult to understand the differentcultures that that landed there and soyou know as an officer you learned thetypes of horrible crimesthese are stereotypes but you learn thetypes of horriblepeople do to their children andSalvadorian men men but the types ofchild abuse that we would see at thehands of el Salvadorians was quitebrutal quite quite brutal and so we geta child abuse paw down in Pico Unionvery heavily on the Salvadorian and mypartner is driving and my partner saysit’s another el salvador beaten his kidand he’s Hispanic my partnerI said yeah probably and so off we gobecause this is what we did we we wentto child abuse Falls where children werebeing savagely by their their parents soas we’re coming up on Pico Union moreinformation comes out of the river butthen I see the person and it isdefinitely not an El Salvadorian manit’s a six-foot tall 250 pound whitewoman and she’s got her baby it wasprobably about six to eight months oldby the ankle and the baby is naked andshe’s walking down the street swingingthe baby and the baby’s head Clips thecurb as she’s walking so I leap out ofthe car and she’s in some kind of dopestupor I do a like a football move Ipush her shoulder with one hand and Igrabbed the baby with another hand I gotthe baby trying to get away from her asshe’s coming over the top of me tryingto get baby suddenly a partner runsaround the car gets her hand cut thebaby screaming bleeding and screamingand so I I I have a little girl at homeso I I stick my my knuckle into thebaby’s mouth and I’m rocking the babytrying to get the baby to stop cryingand this little girl comes out of one ofthese tenements lungs and Pico Unionthis place is the most poverty riddenplace in certainly in Los Angeles if notin America during echos particular timethis little girl comes out of the houseand she says in English to me she’sHispanic she says it was kind of hellyou and I said yes you can tell me Ipull out all my wadded up dollar billsout of my pocket I said run down to theliquor store and get me I’m like anapple juice with a nipple on it you knowand she says okay she runs off with mymoney when my partner starts laughingthose wagons I’m buying lunch she’llcome back cause now she’s not comingbackshe comes running back and she’s got mychange in her low hand and she’s got thelittle bag with the apple juice and thenipple and the whole thing and thenwomen start coming out of the apartmentsand they’re bringing clothes for thebaby and blankets for the baby and I’mfeeling like the biggest asshole onearth because this is the truth of thematter is the good people are alwaysinside no matter what the culture is nomatter what horrible thing you see thegood people are in their homes and webook the mom the baby the baby obviouslywent to to child custody folks came withbaby but mom had AIDS baby had AIDS isthis a sad it was a sad story but I wenthome that Thanksgiving to my own kid andit was a real good reminder to me andit’s a cautionary tale at any time youjust get shit full of something anythingany culture you just have to rememberthe good people are in the houses thenyou focus on the good people it’s goodthat’s a great point wow that’s um Ican’t she was swinging the baby roomthat baby hit the curbing yeah yeah ohmy goodness yeah it helps me and all themoms helped me in and then and it just Ionly had a couple years on the job atthat point but it was a fantasticwake-up call because when you run and goand go and go and go and all you areseeing is the worst that a particularculture people have to offerit can start shaping how you deal witheveryone and and cops always have tobattlethat back absolutely and now I would saynow for the young officers today I’msure it’s is very similar with workingwith the homeless is that you just getshit full of it but you’ve got to findthe humanity and yourself and you got tofind the humanity in the human yeah yougot a question Ken now as you say everyonce in a while people surprise youevery every contact with the policeofficer is negative whether it’s avictim and they got victimized bycriminals or it’s a criminal everythingis a negative contactand so but everyone said well somepeople do stuff that surprised you andit just kind of warms your heart yes yesand that’s what you have to hang on toto get you through to the next horriblething that somebody’s done to anotherperson yeah lyndie can you give someadvice to new police officers orcandidates that are coming on the jobthis one is a tough one because everyoneit has their police experienceexperience in their in their own era youknow and what I noticed it appear inCentral California when they go topolice graduations people that are myage you know Chiefs of Police and so onthat that tend to give the kid asked togive the speeches they all talk abouthow they wouldn’t want this job todayand how hard it is and how everybody ismaligning cops and how it’s a thanklessjob and bla bla bla bla bla and I thinkhaving God if I’m 21 years old and I’mset out to do this career and you’retelling me how awful it is a that thisis my graduation day I spoke about thatvisor a board meeting and then thatlanded me behind the podium myself butit’s so important that young peopletoday learn from the people that areseen here to them of course but thatthey they have the opportunity to bepolice officers in this era which isdifferent and much more challenging Ithink in many ways people are filmingthem all of the time but these are alsokids that are used to living on socialmedia they’re used to being filmed theyfilmed since birth people are constantlyposting pictures of them on Instagram asthey grow up so it’s a different erait’s not a 58 year old going out thereand Patrol it’s a 21 year old so I don’tlike to be negative about about whatthey’re facing because they’re gonna beequipped to face it but I always remindpeople about having a reverence for thelaw even though our laws change and theydon’t benefit California the way it isnow we have some readings for the law wehave to behave with integrity and wehave to be courageous and if you can becourageous you can get the other twodown pretty well courageous is a greatthing to say because it’s couragedoesn’t happen like in the absence offear it’s like overcoming your fearsovercomes fear you’re gonna be afraidsometimes but you have to be courageousthat’s like that’s great Lindy do youhave as we’re talking I posted on ourFacebook page that you were coming onand we have a couple questions that camein for you you might answer okay soDavid Broomfield asked we asked abouttraining to be a homicide detective wekind of talked about that it’s one ofhis goals to be eventually become adetective and he wants to know does thishomicide detectives specifically in youropinion is it take a special kind ofperson even above and beyond being apolice officer I think that I’ve workedwith it’s interesting I have are theythe kind of trend that I saw in thehomicide units is they are gamblers andthey’re artists which may sound reallyfunny but I’ve worked with a lot ofgamblers and I’ve worked with a lot ofpeople who have artistic ability so Ithink about that look what about thosetwo things attracts those types of menand women to homicideand the gambling you are going to take alot of risks interrogating people aretrying to solve things that isrisk-taking that is a risk rewardcomponent the artistic part of it is youneed to be creative and this one’salways tough for me because it taken outof context couldn’t sound bad but what Iliked about being a homicide detectiveis I could create my case how it how Idecide to solve this murderis up to me and it is a creative processhow I am going to is to go at thisproblem I have a lot of leeway to figureout am i going directly at it I mean howam I going to figure how am I going todo it so that’s been my experience thethe my current job I will tell you thatI love homicide detectives because theywill not quit and so even though now I’ma responsible for people who do a lot offraud investigations which are very verydifficult to do I like to put myhomicide guys in those positions becauseI know they won’t quit so those would bethe three things that I would say areindicative that are really differentthan patrol officers okay and clearlyyou like to both of them no I meanpatrol and uh so you’re about to saysomething really great there and then Italked and I was a you finish patrolbecause I love a uniform I love the factthat you know why I’m there and there’sno there’s I loved it I loved it what Ienjoyed about being a detective is thisis the trickery stuff this is themanipulative stuff this is the how am Igonna get you to trust me and open upand tell me things stuff that it’s notit’s not up front what you’re doing isis a little sneakier and it’s a lot offunabsolutely alright Lindy we have onefrom Joseph Harper and he wants to knowwhat’s in your opinion what would beharder to solve a celeba murder or a transient murder so if youare working the LAPD you won’t have thatproblem because RHD is going to come andscoop it up out of your hands if it’s acelebrity and then you will get nothingbut media coverage and so on so all yourmoves are are you know documented on ontelevision that’s Robbery HomicideDivision they’re kind of like yeah eliteinvestigators detectives they’re theMetro of detectivesthey are the Metro and you didn’t makecontact with them did you Lindy don’t doit but they so no I’ve never I’ve solvedhigh-profile murders but not celebritymurder they would say that would be verydifficult to solve just for the pressureof everybody being interested in ittransient would be difficult because ofthe nature of transients but that one’sawesome because you can get people totalk to you that are living in a youknow a wash they they will talk to youso I would pick transient over celebrityvery cool trans you know you’re sayingtransient is harder okay gotcha yeah Imean you talk to other homeless peoplehe could you know I am a hot dog let’sstart flapping their gums you never findhim for Court what can we send thesubpoena but most of it most detectivesin this country are toiling with nomedia attention because the mediasadly considers there’s a hierarchy ofpeople and some people are consideredthrowaway people so prostitutes and drugaddicts and gang members and these arethese are the these are not the murderspeople follow they follow the LaciPeterson murder they follow that eventhough there were two african-americanwomen that were dumped in that same Baythey follow thethat they probably who they who theywant to follow and it’s not it’s notwhat most of us are doing we’re livingunderstood Lindy I want to hear aboutyour books in in you have someinvolvement in TV shows everybody cameback I as a reader I really enjoy hmm Ienjoyed Michael Connelly a lot I likecereal books I like to stay with thecharacter for years and years and yearsand books and books and books so when Iset out to write my own novels I wanteda series because I like series but Iwanted to do something different Iwanted to do it from a female detectivespoint of view and then I wanted to do itfrom a male detectives point of view sothe female detective she single makesbad mistakes love life but that’s herstory and then every other book is fromthe female or the male perspective herpartner I find it interesting the beforestory because if you pick out anydetective book he is always divorced heis always an alcoholic and he always haslike a hooker with a heart of gold ishis new girlfriendwell what happened to that guy beforethat so my homicide detective is marriedwith two kids and I write about the tollworking murders takes on a normal littlefamily because that’s to me isinteresting as opposed to the guy who’salready divorced you notice that thinkabout every time you pick up a book thatdetective he is already divorced he’salready in alcoholic I thought it wouldbe more interesting to talk about howdid that begin so I picked a younger mangave him a wife and children and put himin situations that are tough and ofcourse they solve murders along the wayso those are thatthat’s my books did they come out thesame year 2016 so the first book isholdfastokay then bell lap so it came out kindof like within six months of each otherwow that’s that’s pretty impressive youwrote two books at the same year oh Iwrote yeah I can write okay I in betweenmy LAPD and my job now I had three yearsoff and I wrote I had probably did itright and so yeah and then I I’m not Ihave a tough time with these televisionshows where murder is entertainment butI felt but any opportunity I had to helpthe books I would take and so I said yesto a discovery ID show called the killercloser which just the title is justmakes me cringe but yeah and thatprofiled some of the murders that I hadworked and the thing that I will tellyou I was mortifying as it is to besitting in front of a camera and talkingabout yourself the thing that was reallycoolis that this made it all worth it wasone of the moms one of my murder victimssaid I don’t remember this but she saidthat I had promised her I would solvetheir son’s murder which seems reallyfoolish on my part but apparently Ipromised her I would solve her son’smurder and she said she has said aprayer for me every night for 17 yearsoh sweet I have never I I never neverseen her in 17 years and to think thatto think that I made an impact onsomebody I did solve it by the way butto think that I that anybody would hadto desire the grace to say a prayer forme just it humbles me beyond beyond whatI can even describe that’s beautifulthat’s awesome yeahyeah Hollywood did how many episodes ofthe killer clothes are theyis it still in production yeah it’sfunny because it’s made its way aroundthe globe and I can tell because onFacebook I will get friend requests fromRomania or something and so I can tellwhere it is and currently now it’s inSouth America based on the facts on myFacebook page but when it made its wayto Yugoslavia Serbiamy last name is Serbian and so I wasquite the hit in Serbia which is prettyfunnycan you tell us how to say your namebecause I introduced that let me tellyou how I said it then you can critiqueme I said the gorgeou because you haveto love a guy to take on this name andI’m sure you spell that phoneticallyconstantly on the phoneLAPD is famous for giving nicknames totheir cops that they cannot pronouncetheir last names did you have a nicknamedid they give you any like G my stepsonis a Pasadena police sergeant and he hasthe same thing it’s Mike Mike G it’sLinda Jie Jie and in the Academy I’msure they had a field day with with yourlist because that the names of the Kendathe recruits are in the backs of the thesweatshirts that’s funny is when we weregonna get married he did not want towear a wedding ring because you knowbeing a fireyour finger could get pulled off at anymoment if you have a wedding ring onlast name because my last name isOlufsen are you Scandinavian yes I am Ithink there’s it’s easy and you know byyour last name on a police department sowe go into this negotiation about thisand he really wants me to have his lastname he’s like if something happens toyou I want the fireman no you’re my wifeso I said okay you wear ring I’ll takeblue greenage spelling this name now for26 years I really think I got the shirtand the stick on this one it looks likeLindy is a chief of investigations youstill doing that huh yes Larry CountyDistrict Attorney’s Office yeah soyou’ve got some you know I’m curiousabout that I’ve always wondered you knowthere’s homicide detectives on thepolice departments who investigate thecrimes and then the district attorneyalso has investigators can you tell usthe difference between the two yeahthat’s a tough one because in 58counties in California it’s differentand they’re all 58 do things differentlyin LA County it’s I never saw dainvestigator they weren’t involved inthe homicide investigation is not forthe LAPD but here I’m in rural centralCalifornia and what tends to happen isthe responding agency gets a casethrough the preliminary hearing stageand then preparing it for a jury trialit comes to my investigators to to shoreup the case before it goes to a jurytrial but we don’t actually respond tohomicides in the field but we do do alot of work on them afterward afterwardsand I’ve got a cold-case unit that isresponsible for solving cold cases in myso is there continuity from the time thethe homicide detectives do they let goof the case and then you guys pick it upsome do not all but some do becausethese are smaller departments they haveless resources and so we are in moresupport of them than in otherjurisdictionsyeah back right where I was a copthere’s um there’s actually a law inMassachusetts there’s only threedepartments that can investigatehomicides because of how small there’sso many small towns in Massachusettsevery chief kind of has his own littlefiefdom like I’m from Cape Cod andthere’s 15 towns 15 different policedepartments so 15 differentjurisdictions I’m keep god so yeahthere’s like we can’t we can’t give therecant give we have a 15 min Departmentwe’re gonna put one or two guys on amurder if it happens for for how long wecan’t do it because we can’t cover ourships so I think it’s WorcesterSpringfield and Boston and the StatePolice they can do homicides nobody elsecan that’s interesting yeah you take forgranted especially when you work out aPE you took for granted how things arethings are different just going over thegrapevine in California it’s everybody’sin your own snow globeyou know you working to there you saidCounty yes Larry okay I do um I’m afraud investigator for insurance so Ispent some time up there okay I foundlike you said it’s different everywhereI’ve found that County to be like a lotmore cooperative like with me you knowwhen I want reports server I want totalk to an officer or they’re just yeahthey’re just more here it’s like youknow it’s it’s busy as hell of courseand it’s I’m sure it’s busy up there toobut here it’s like LAPD they won’t giveyou a report it has to be in writingthrough the mail only yeah even for wehave a note from God even for like amotor vehicle death or something they’reyou know you’re you’re doing thisinvestigation nope so you never get itit’s four or five months after yourinvestigations overLAPD report comes in the sheriff’shit-or-miss but it’s like I think it’slike 30 or 40 dollars for the report butup there to pronounce it – Larry – Larry- Larry up there it’s like at 2/3 oftime they give you the report for freeand they’re more than happy to you knowgive me who the officer detective wasand just I like it I like it up thereit’s a I tell people all the timeit is like California was 30 years agohere it’s the people largely support lawenforcement they’re friendly it’s it’s adifferent environment than in the BayArea or in Southern Californiaabsolutely and it’s the birthplace ofisn’t it Merle Haggard that is in KernCounty that’s just south of KernCounty’s Big Ben yes do you do you haveany idea when I when Lindy will finallysay it’s been a good career well I doplay the lottery so it could be it couldbe this week but no I got to do a fewmore years did you’ve done 19 at LAPDand how many have you had – Countytwelve and so and so the 19 should tellyou something I pulled my pension andthat that is a cautionary tale of whatnot to dogetting police officers so um and thenwe moved to Nevada I wasn’t gonna be inlaw enforcement anymore I can writebooks blah blah blah blah blah theeconomy crashed and I am qualified toyou know solve homicides and answerphones so I came back to work as a DAinvestigator kind of pull us out of thefinancial quad Meyer I had gotten usinto you so I’ll have to work a littlebit longer than I’d like to that’s goodthough you enjoying yourself I for somereason Steve I don’t see Lindy needing amonster energy drinkI think she’s got all the energy sheneeds every day she’s good to go yeahthere’s a kick I mean we could talk toLindy for probably four or five hoursshe’s got more stuff then than mostpeople probably have this is great wellI appreciate your interest it’s been funtalking to you guys Ella Lindy thank youso much for coming on the show and yeahif you’re if you’re open to it maybedown the road we could we could have youback tell some more stories oh yeahabsolutely I really do like the idea ofquestions because it’s it’s funnybecause we think we know what peoplewant to hear but I love answeringpeople’s questions especially youngofficers that are that are trying to getget situated in their careers awesomewell thank you so much and I’m gonna I’mgonna do our outro here but just hang onthe line til it’s over if you don’t mindyes sir will dohey guys I hope you enjoyed the episodeif you’d like to support the show goover to things police c-calm when youget on the website there’s a fewdifferent ways you can show some supportyou can donate directly you can do aone-time donation or a monthly donationeven a buck helps us keep the lights onover here pays our expenses for themonth is greatly appreciated you canalso just use our Amazon affiliate linkif you just want to buy something onAmazon like you normally do just do itthrough our link and we’ll get a littlekickback for that so you can go to thewebsite and do that or in the show notesI’ll put a link you can just click rightthrough that link and the third way isyou can buy some good buy some merch sowe have coffee mugs we have t-shirtsmen’s and women’s and we also havehoodie sweatshirts now so go over twothings please see calm and check it outyou can also just listen to the podcastthere or you can apply to be a guest toscroll down to and click on be a guestand what you want to do is just give usa brief synopsis of your of your servicehow many years you were on the job andjust a very brief idea of the storiesyou’d like to share and I will get rightback to you so thank you for listeningand we’ll catch you 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