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Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Peginiana Show.
Thomas Hey, part two of the police series.
Speaker 2: How you doing man, I'm doing well, Thank you man. Yeah,
I think it was pretty Part one's seem to be
pretty well received people. Uh, I guess some of the
subs were confused that the whole thing wasn't on YouTube.
I don't know why. It's like in the description it
said it was just like a preview.
Speaker 1: But let me address that real quick in the beginning
of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the videos are not gonna
be on YouTube brumble bit shoot anymore. You get a preview.
If you decided something you want to watch, you can
go over to one of the podcast apps and listen
to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just not knowing that video. I'm not gonna put
out video anymore. No, no, that makes perfect sense, man.
And and yeah, like I didn't think it was confusing
or anything. That's that seems like a perfectly reasonable way
to do it. So yeah, that's that's great.
Speaker 1: If it's a particularly if it's a subject that I
think we need video for, I'll release it for subscribers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, that that that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I I wasn't confused by the whole thing,
but a handful of people hit me up about it.
So yeah, thanks for thanks for shouting it out, I think,
And then we finished it off last time talking about
Robert Peel and like the Peel principles, and you know,
I emphasize that not to be pedantic or because I
get excited about triviality is and the historical record. But
again that agree to which policing really is a political phenomenon.
It's not. It's not this necessity whereby, oh, the police
have always been here. You know, the police have existed
for forty thousand years, like basically since man became like
sentient and if they go away, there's anarchy. That's not
why you have a police department, you know. And the
American model. The reason why there's not like there's not
like an American version of like the German order police
that are like part of the National Guard or something
is because there's a there's a strange situation in the
UK and America. And for clarity too, like uh, you know,
Peel absolutely was the thought, wasn't is the father of
modern what's called like metropolitan policing. The first, the first
true police department came from Scotland. That's like, get another
thing that like the Scottish came up with in uh
in this the City of Glasgow police like the first,
like the first professional police department. They were established an
Act of Parliament in eighteen hundred. I knew that, but
some of the some of like this, some of the
Pikey's like shouted out and like what the fuck the
first police was quoting the quotes. So there you go.
And Peel, Uh, the the London Uh, the London Metropolitan
Police were created by the Peace the Peace Preservation Act
of eighteen fourteen, and Peel essentially like drafted that in
all but name. I don't know if he's credited as
as as the primary author, but yeah, for context in
at the turn of the nineteenth century, London had it
had four hundred fifty constables and service to the kings
or Queen's bench and forty hundred night watchmen, you know,
and it was, uh, it wasn't within the contemplation that
there'd be like a permanent professional police force until Peel's
reforms and when he became Home Secretary. That's really when
it began in earnest. But there the significance to us
in this country. You know, everything kind of changed with
the New Deal regime and subsequent and you know, one
of the reasons why it is people might and older.
Remember one of the reasons why it was a big
deal when the media kind of turned on LAPD and
you know, when the Rodney King incident happened, and then
like the subsequent you know, like race war came about.
I'm not I'm not being shrill. I mean that there
really was a race war. You know. I think people
kind of confused William H. Parker with Darryl Gates. And
I've noticed that too because a lot of these it's
fading because like nobody takes woke shit seriously anymore. But
at that at the peak of that garbage, like I
think around like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, there was a
lot of these. There was a there was a handful
like history as a Los Angeles that made sound of
a splash and it kind of made, you know it
kind of mainstream academ which is very midwood stuff. But
there was this big effort to kind of slander William H. Parker.
And I realized because I'm like, why theyre singling out
Parker And I'll get to why that's weird in a minute.
But then I realized a lot of these people, I
think Parker and Gates are the same guy. You know,
and Gates. I I think Gates was kind of an
ugly guy, like not not for this, not for the
reasons that a lot of left wingers do. But I
you know, I I'll get into why I think that
in a bit. But but Parker, Parker was this big progressive,
you know, he and his He's kind of like the
American Robert Peel in some ways, you know, because like
policing before the nineteen fifties, really in America, it's like
corruption was kind of taken for granted, Like I mean,
like graft, like BESI was understood like in any big
city you can like pay off the cops and get
them off your back. It was very ad hoc I
think that until I think I think in the nineteen forties,
the city of Miami you had literally two sworn police officers,
you know, and even in cities where you had, you know,
a more mobilized police force like Chicago, it didn't it
didn't function the way like we think of it. They
were kind of like de facto like you know, union
busters and strike breakers. You know, you kind of rely
on police services and you could like pay them to
show up like below board, you know, and it was
not in Gangs in New York, which I think is
a really great film, although like a lot of people
trash it for reasons I don't quite understand, but I
like it for a lot of reasons. I mean, it's
the only film that really deals with kind of the
the what life was like in big northern cities during
the War between the States. But Happy Jack, you know,
the the thug like the like the policemen played by
John c Riley was like out there thugginghead like that
was pretty realistic. Like by all accounts, man like that.
That's like what the police were like. You know.
Speaker 1: There was a there was a show. I can't remember
if it was on AMC or History, but it was.
It only did two seasons. It was called Copper Uh huh,
and it was I've never heard of it. Yeah, yeah,
it was really good and it really it did a
good job of showing it would be late eighteen hundreds,
it's eighteen eighties, eighteen nineties, and it did a really
good job as showing just exactly that the whole John
c Riley thing about how they were a lot of
them were just thugs. A lot of them grew up
thugs or they came back from the war and they
had nothing else that they could do, and they got
thrown into into policing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were good at strong arming people when they
they and they were yeah, and they were good with
with with a hand on it, which in those days,
I mean today, I'm still a terrible pistol shot. But
these days it's a lot easier to stay Ontario the
pistol than if you're using some old cold forty by peacemaker,
you know, like even I mean, you know that you're
a gun guy. But but yeah, so that's you know,
it's basically what the police were. It's not some that's
not some progressive myth about you know, the bad guy
police or something. I mean, it's a fact, but it.
But Parker, you know, all kinds of in every sense
in public policy, you know, always making the point that
sociology was a real discipline, like because of the Cold
War and because the managerial state. And Parker was one
of these guys. I'll get into his background in a minute,
But in the nineteen fifties and sixties, like big city
police chiefs or in Chicago police superintendents as we call them,
they weren't just like career cops who you know had
like the ear of the mirror. I mean, there's definitely
some of that, but this idea of you know, a
cop needs to be some like college educated type with
with you know, preferably with the with a kind of
prestige degree, you know, which in those days supposed like
a degree in sociology or economics or like urban planning
or something. You know, Like this was a big thing,
you know, and that's one of the reasons why Parker
didn't like Hollywood. But the reason why shows like Dragnet
were a big deal. Like they worked with La PD
and Parker cultivated that, you know, I got La Confidential.
How the guy played like Kevin Space even sends he's
like always wearing uh, he's always wearing Italian suits, and
he's got like manicured fingernails, and he's he's consulting with
a guy he was supposed to be Jack Webb. I'm
Dragnet Like that was the real thing. Like the Hollywood
La Cop who knows who had them, you know, who's
interface of the media in a way that that is
essential kind of the public image, you know, like they
had stuff all came from Parker and uh, you know
that this was the l e PD was held out
as like the model police force, and if you read
the kind of stuff Parker said, it was all like
the Peel principles. You know, it's like we're a community
based police department. You know, like we're not here, you know,
just to arrest people and and smack people up. You know. Uh,
We're not just a bunch of stripe breakers. Like he
was like this big progressive who like was was a who.
I mean, that's why it's weird theyre trying to present
him as this kind of like clansman type or something like,
because he wasn't at all. He was like this big
progressive and his big thing was that, like the the
La County sheriffs, they had a reputation as being kind
of like very redneckish and very rough. And his whole
thing was like, we're not like those guys. You know. Uh,
Parker like high he was into hiring blacks and uh
and like mestizel people, you know, to police their own
hoods and stuff like this. That was like this whole thing,
you know, and like that people might be like, well,
that's just like police work. But yeah, that's why it's
police work because of Parker. And Parker was falling back
on on this stuff from the UK because he was
an educated guy, and like most of these guys, you know,
he came up through the service during the War two,
like he'd been born in uh in the Dakotas and
found his way to give me one second, my machines
freaking out there we go. Yeah, he was born he
was born in South Dakota and made his way uh
in Deadwood, you know, which has like an auspicious heritage
as regards law enforcement and stuff. And then he, uh
he made his way to southern California like a lot
of like a lot of people did from that part
of the country, including my paternal grandfather. His uh, his grandfather,
William H. Parker, was a war hero. He fought to
the Union Army and in the War between the States
and later served in Congress. And Parker was uh he
was very Catholic, which obviously was unusual and in uh
in like Los Angeles at the time, which was just
kind of like a wasp it was. It was a
really it was kind of like a wasp bread out
like literally like rich waspy people. He kind of settled
it and those people like their their descendants like still
have a lot of cloud there, you know. And and
then and there was a lot of like okies too,
you know who like working in poor like white folks.
But you know, Parker was kind of outside of that culture.
But he, uh, he joined la PD on August eighteenth,
nineteen twenty seven. He was going to law school, and
it's the idea was that it was just going to
like put him through school and it was like something
to do and like, you know, well during the course
of his studies, and he said he could learn like,
you know, stuff about public policy or whatever. I'm at
the road in terms of functional application of the law,
you know, like in an executive role at street level.
But he decided every past the bar exam, he just
he decided to he decided to stay on is early
he early on, like he was a big advocate of
like a police the police union, which at that time
I think the New York and Chicago or paternal or
a police were already a thing. But like the idea
of public sector unions, I'm don't get me wrong, Like
police work in them days was a lot different than today.
And like those guys actually did need some kind of
formal representation visa via the city council and stuff. It's
not it's not like ridiculous bullshit like I make a
teacher's union. But you know, public sector unions weren't a thing,
and uh, back in those days in California, I think
throughout the state, so that there was any kind of
like cop representation, and in terms of organized labor, it
was generally like a police and firefighters union, and that
was that was his primary role. You know, he wasn't
mostly a beat cop, but he did. He took leave
to go fight in uh World War two, and he
was in uh, he was in Dura combat. He got
a purple heart for wounds that he received in Normandy,
and he'd been in UH he'd been at the assault
in Sardinia, and because of his background as a cop,
they put him. He was both in the role it's
kind of like a counterinsurgency planner like in theater, and
he was responsible for ows and stuff and detention as
well as you know, kind of policing uh the ranks
post occupation in Munich and stuff. That's a uh, that's
a resume. I'm not trying to cast an ominous light
on Parker. But that's a resume, not unlike John Burge,
although Burge I believe was engaged in Phoenix program type
stuff and not for those that don't know, Burge was
he was a homicide police here in Chicago, very feared guy.
His name rang out and he he got indicted like
years after he retired from torturing suspects, procuring all these
dubious confessions that were procured under duress, but did agree
to it. The military during like the draft era, you know,
and basically you know, World War One through nom and
and the relationship of L. E. P D to the
Vietnam War particularly very interesting. Joseph Wambaugh gets into that.
We'll talk a little bit of Wamba. But during during
the World War two era, you know, like there was
a glott of guys who who'd uh, who'd been in
a heavy action, who became cops or guys like Parker
who'd you know, already been score an officers and then left,
you know, to leave, like you know, to join the
service or to be you know, satisfy their draft obligation
or whatever. But he he got, he got the War Cross.
I'm not even gonna try and pronounce that the croix
the ge I think is what it's called. It's basically, uh,
basically the Frenchy equivalent of the war merit cross maintaining
ordered in the liberation of Paris. But out of the war,
he shout through the ranks, became one of the one
of the deputy chiefs, and by nineteen fifty he was
by the year nineteen fifty, like he was a big
shot and he he he's responsible for not just cleaning
up graft at street level, but you know, kind of
a insinuating LA, insulating lapd from like war to politics.
There's one of the reasons too. I like mafia guys
in the traditional sense, like couldn't really get a toe
hold in California, you know, like I I'm sorry to
keep citing a Hollywood movie as authoritative beat, but it
draws upon real stuff and some people are familiar with,
you know, like an LA Confidential. There's a scene where
like Dudley, like Budd White, who's like, isn't forced her,
you know, he's like a goon police like they they
were that. He's like East Coast mob guys are in
Los Angeles for some reason, so like Dudley has white
in the goon squad like Shanghai these dudes and like
take them to you know, take take them to some
interrogation location and like beat the fuck up out of them.
And then they literally like put these guys like back
on a train going back east, like all like broken
up and and bang up and battered like LAPD did
stuff like that. And that's one of the reasons Lava
was always an open territory. Like it's not just because
the LAPD would literally fuck your world up, you know
if you were outsider trying to set up rackets there,
but there really wasn't. There wasn't like any ward boss
you could go visit in La you know who if
it didn't you know who, peeps be like, hey, I'm
so and so, you know, and my guy vouch for me,
Like let's do business. And I mean you have like
and you don't have to. You don't have just like
you don't have the same hood structure in La Man.
I mean yeah, it's like like East La Spanish traditionally
south Central as black, you know, and then you got
like Oki and white hoods. But it's not like Chicago
and New York it's not like there's like this like
words system where you know, you were like bosses on
from the ground up, is like how you got stuff done.
So you know, Parker kind of yeah, it's like okay,
any man in the airheads to work cut out for him.
But you know, it's it's important to distinguish that Los
Angeles was kind of fertile grounds for a lot of
this stuff and a lot of this kind of social
policy experimentation. That's not to say it's a tabula rasa,
but it's not only that's one of reason too, Like
I mean, because we just did a California series, this
is one of the reasons why people are gotta be
able to project onto California, specifically Los Angeles. This kind
of confabulated narrative of its political heritage, you know, like
one one way or the other to try and show
up a mandate of an ideological nature. But you know,
the uh one of Parker's big things, and Gates later
ran with this, albeit pretty very different reasons. But Parker
h Parker dramatically reduced the size of LAPD and he
actually militarized it in key ways, not in terms of
its ethos, but his whole thing was mobility. And you know,
again like his formative experience at command level, and I
believe the rank of commander as a police rank came
about under Parker's tenure, but you know, his his experience,
his form of experience had been in the service, like
at the you know, in the military, and that perspective
shaped LAPD and you know that's what like air mobility
by uh, like the Vietnam era was a huge thing
with LAPD two. You know, like they make use of
shoppers in a way that northern police departments do. I mean,
part of that's just because the geography and the vastness
of the territory they're responsible for, but it's also a
very military way of like staying on target or I
don't I don't know how the police what their nomenclatter
is for that. I'm sure they call it something different
that sounds less ominous or or direct the action oriented but.
Speaker 1: Not not not to try to be funny, but Mayor
Goody and Philadelphia also used helicopters to change Philadelphia, do
you remember that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, that's a fair point.
But the you know, the so it's on the one hand,
so it's kind of like two competing tendencies, like the
posture of police deployment away from you know, like uh
like like police literally walking beats in uh the same neighborhood.
It's just that they're insinuated into the community to like
rotating officers, you know, so they get like a city
wide perspective and get used to kind of interfacing with
with every major population segment. And you know, switching to
police cars over foot patrols. That was a huge Parker
thing because his old thing too was like you know
and being able to swarm be you know, being able
to swarm units to uh to reinforce officers in trouble,
you know, order to respond to the running force. Like
that was a that was a Parker innovation. And uh,
this stuff, uh it's being a wamba. I highly recommend
anything written but the Onion Field, which is a horrible story.
These two il EPD playing clothes cops were kidnapped and
one of them was murdered. The other guy survived and
the way he was treated was horrible. But you know,
in those days like there there wasn't you know, police
radios were tied to the vehicle that they were driving
and obviously there wasn't the same kind of modern telecom
and uh, if somebody got the drop on you in
those days and previously, if you were told to like
surrender your weapon, you were like police were told they
should comply like subsequently, and this is a Parker innovation,
he said, like never ever surrender your service weapon, you know,
like basically you should die before we ever give up
your weapon, you know, And the police just adopted a
more military mindset and like across the board. But at
the same time, though, you know, like I said, like
Parker was very much part of the sociologically progressive, academically polished,
classic kind of bureaucrats who represented the face twenty century policing.
And interestingly, Gene Roddenberry served with LAPD. You know, he's
like the Star Trek guy. I think Star Trek's goofy.
I'm not a fan of it. But the original series
is a very much kind of a time capsule of
like the Kennedy sixties Kennedy or sixties. I realized that
it endured beyond that. But Captain Kirk is based on
William H. Parker, like like literally, like roden Berry said that,
and like he knew the guy, you know, and he's like,
that's like Kirk is like this guy. He was like
this man of action, but he's also like mister you know,
he's always exciting Abraham Lincoln in the Constitution and he's
like he's like mister like appeal to legal authority, and
we do everything by the book. He's supposed to be
William H. Parker, Okay. And that's also why, like he's
got like a multi racial crew and he's got he's
got the Russian guy on deck, he's got like the
effeminate Asian guy. He's got like the black woman who's
like his telecom officer. Like this this wasn't just that,
This wasn't just token his 'm on television. I mean, yeah,
that was part of it, but that was very deliberate,
Like this is this is whyamage Parker's police department in space,
you know, which I which I think is interesting. But
the Ivan, he had a kind of the kind of
stuff I'm talking about. And Wamba wrote directly about this
in his in the Like, he wrote it was in
the onion field, and he mentioned this later in his life.
The like is an ongoing like example of kind of
the weirdness of the of the sixties is in kind
of the new the kind of new fangled progressivism of it.
It was on the game to be called colloquially the
coloquially the blazer experiments, as in a blazer like a
sports jacket in Uh, this jurist this town called Menlo
Park in California. They hired this, but it was they
hired this police chief named uh victorak Cizankas Cizankis, I
think I'm butchering that name, forgive me, but his Melo
Park was added. They to say that had troubled community.
To say the troubled community relations the police department, I mean,
would be a gross understatement. Okay, this was nineteen sixty eight.
That's kind of nationwide that these issues were emergent, but
it was particularly pronounced in me little park. Okay, they've
been hit particularly hard by the nineteen sixties there. It's
located just south of San Francisco, so they caught a
lot of the same ship that the Bay Area proper.
Did you know, a lot of like a lot of
a lot of a lot of a lot of cultivated
student radicalism. You know, when I say cultivated, I mean
you know, the usual suspects and g os and things
to do what they can to provoke and orchestrate the
kind of thing. But just like real, like real, just
like organic difficulties between the races, you know. As Unfortunately,
as you know, Southern California is associated with North and South. Uh.
The Memlo Park Coppers, their reputation is being kind of
a kick ass police department. And during racial incidents or
or anti war protest that got out of hand, like
like the police would go in and kickle out of
the ass, okay. And this caused this, this, this, this
caused real problems, all right. So Susannacis Versusankas, sorry Sankas.
He's brought in and he's got this kind of like
radical orientation about policing. And it was called the Blazer
experiment because he did away with police uniforms. He's like, Okay,
from now on, he's that we're not we're not we're
not gonna wear some paramilitary uniform with a sam Brown
belt and like, uh, you know, like a piece on
your hip or we're not gonna do that anymore. So
these Menlo Park police, they started going around wearing like
khaki pants, ants and these like green blazers, so they
look like guy who's like worked at a country club
or something. And there's like this little like city crest
on on like the breast pocket like you can you
can like google is and it's it's ridiculous. And your
your weapon, your service weapon was always sposed to be
out of view, okay, either by way of a shoulder
holster or you know, discreetly squirreled away like in an
ankle holster, you know, because no one's never supposed to
see it, you know. And there's this whole there's this
whole litany of kind of rules for how you're supposed
to and instigate like basically a terry stop and like
even if you have to, even if you have to,
like you know, stop and frisk somebody because they're obviously
strapped or because they're up to you know, or because
like your police instincts or however they characterize it in
those days, tells you that, you know, you know, your
spidey senses tell you something you don't like about this
this suspect, So frisk iimmn figure out the problem, cause
later you're supposed to always lok initiate those contacts by
you know, but by asking somebody if if if they
if they have consent, you know, shit like that, which
is fucking stupid. Okay, it was, it was. It was stupid,
stupid today. It was stupid back then. And like a
lot of this crap is coming back, but these days
it's it's in combination with various other factors, you know,
like like like policing as it's existed is coming to
an end, okay, And so it's kind of interesting to me,
Like in nineteen sixty eight, uh, the Peel model of
police work at far from exhausted itself, obviously, but it's
interesting on some of this stuff is kind of coming
back because if it's an issue of first impression as
people scramble kind of trying salvage this this obsolete model.
But you know, this caused, uh, this caused a lot
of consternation among the ranks of police departments because obviously
there was these like like progressive types, you know, and
including uh Susankas's fans, they thought like this was great,
but you know, a cops who were who were dealing
with burgaining anarchy and in real violence, you know, in
in Los Angeles and Chicago, in Boston and Philly and
New York City. You know, being a cop was a
dangerous job then, and you know you you very much
were out gunned, you know, you very much You're in
jeopardy then in a way you're not today. You know,
I realized there's cops in god forsaken places that are
in fact under fire a lot, and uh, they don't
have the kind of forces and being or the firepower
to really be confident, you know, and if if, if
they get moved on. But that's the exception, not the rule.
Like in the nineteen sixties, that was that was the rule,
not the exception. Okay, Parker's police department was was was
was kind of the exception because they had all that stuff.
But you know, like very very very kind of rapidly
this uh the Blazer experiment. Uh, like people realize like
this is just not this is not something that's gonna work.
And uh but the what did uh what what what
did linger? Though? Is you know, the the like like
career minded officers coming from more academically rigorous backgrounds. That's
something that endured really until like the early eighties, and
then by then like that was by then that was done.
You know, for a lot of reasons. Part of it
was a trickle down effect of of of military industrial imperatives.
I mean, I don't know that makes me sound like
some shopski, I don't. I don't mean it in the
same way that people like ke xachlites do. But it
is a fact. But one of the one of the
one of the many kind of coheimes of comical things
about the Blazer experiments. The the organizational lingue lingo of
the police department was changed. Sergeants became managers and police
lieutenants and menlo were called directors. Like it, I mean
that it's it's it's a comical bullshit. It's got like
the kind like there was something that I don't like
the Vietnam ere at military, like in the Poga and
the pole ranks. But uh, it's just you know every
strange era man, but this but by the early seventies,
all this kind of all this all this kind of stuff,
and it kind of fallen out of favor even, you know,
it even even among a kind of the most art
you know polemisis of uh in favor of you know,
police reform, which in their view would you know, kind
of constitute a stripping of the ability of big city
police to you know, to meet to meet breads. You know,
this is like little remembered the day, and it's remarkable
the kind of short memory people have. And I think
about this a lot, especially when there's when the regime
tries to been sitting with propaganda about you know, domestic
terrorism into in the politic discussions. You know. Uh, during
the early nineteen seventies, there was there was constant, genuine
like domestic terrorist incidents, you know, coast to coast. Nixon
and Jay R. Hoover, who you know, even in the
best of times, had a very contentious and not at
all friendly relationship to say the least. This became such
a concern that Nixon during June nineteen seventy, Nixon haaled
uh Hoover into the Oval office and he he said,
have known certain terms that uh quote, revolutionary terror was
the greatest single threat to like civil order in America
at the time. And that wasn't that wasn't hyperboleeve. You know,
there was like the weathermen were going nuts. Uh. There
was a half a dozen other you know, self declared
you know, like Mawist revolutionary groupings that were dropping bodies
and and and and and pulling off ied attacks. You know,
there were the Patty Hurst incidents. It's almost so strange,
like that seems like something that like like a Hollywood
screenwriter had like written that Patty Hurst s l a
situation into some script. Like people would have laughed at it,
saying there's no way that could possibly happen. But I mean,
but but it happened.
Speaker 1: You know, you had a lot of hijacking, a lot
of hijacking of planes too.
Speaker 2: It became the norm. Yeah, it became something that was
as common as a like armed robbery and yeah, and
the the zebra killings, you know, which were, uh, what's
we're what's we're horrifying? You know, And that was like
part of it was a deliberate suppression of of reporting
on on i've racially driven violence so as the you know,
preclude escalation and the kindling effect as it were. But
part of it was also, like the zebra killings, people
don't know about them. It was this offshoot of the
five percenter faction of the ny who call themselves death Angels. Uh.
They went on this rampage of just random torture murders
of white people in the Bay Area and the police
code UH for these incidents with Zebra it's insant. It's
ironically accidental that, you know, the implication of zebras as
relating to black and white striping or whatever. But that
was going on at the same time the Zodiac killer
was was bodying people and and and taunting the cops.
So it's kind of overshadowed. But this is a real thing,
you know, and it uh there were throughout the seventies,
there was there was hundreds of these incidents every year,
you know, if not thousands, great and small, the UH
and then downtown New York even this got this this
whole kind of air got kicked off the summer of
sixty nine, this uh, this commie radical named Sam Melville,
him and his UH cadre, they bombed something like a
dozen buildings like in downtown Manhattan, you know, from the
summer of sixty nine until like that November, and then
against the seventies as ninety six nine, nineteen seventy it
only it only snowballed, you know, I mean, so it's
kind of it was kind of fertile ground for UH. Yeah.
By nineteen seventy two, incredible as it is. I mean,
back in these days, FBI statistics were substantially more reliable
than today. In ninety seventy two, there was there's two
thousand and five hundred politically motivated bombings or ied attacks
on American soil. That that that comes out to five
a day. Okay, excuse me, this is totally insane, but
that that's that's what laid the groundwork for kind of
nineteen eighties policing, which truly is when things truly became
paramilitary arised, you know, And and Darryl Gates was the
standard bearer of that, you know, and Gates is most remembered.
I mean, I Gates was because I spent so much
time in LA as a kid. And Gate Gates was
an intimidating guy, you know, like I any, and he
seemed he seemed to paramilitary, you know, like a lot
of big city cops either seemed they seem kind of
like either like Keystone cop eurocrats, you know, like goofs
where they seemed just kind of like politicians like Gates
like seemed like a bad dude, you know, and he'd
uh l a p D. You'd see him, uh you know,
the l A p D. They didn't wear ties. They'd
wear those like uh, they'd wear those like v neck
like button. I'm sure it's like a vest. They looked
like super modern and and they were all a bunch
of like in the eighties, they're all a bunch of
like buffed out, like tough looking guys. You know. I
was just I was used to like Chicago cops look
like goons and the and they've always come heavy, but
they like Chica cops the air, I kind of look
like fat ass like mob guys or something, you know,
So like in LA As a kid, I was always
kind of tripped out by Darrel Gaze and OAPD. But
you know what Gates is most kind of known for
is stuff like the CRASH program, which began prior to
gates his tenure. But you know, the movie Colors like
was about CRASH, which is an acronym for community Resources
against Street Hooligans. It uh, it originally was called trash
Total Resources against Street Hooligans. And I would sly references
like we're like the garbage MANX, We're taking out the
fucking trash, and LABD realized like when that would public well,
this isn't like great pr but you know, Gates also
is the father of SWAT. He devised SWAT, which initially
was Special Weapons Assault Team. You know, then we have
special weapons and tactics, but uh, Gates divides that during
Parker's tenure, you know, and uh that was actually very
forward looking, like one of the reasons why one of
one of a million reasons why the FBI is like
it's head up his ass, you know how, like their
direct action capability is still the hostage rescue team and
their operational paradigm like until very recently was that treat
everything as if it's a hostage situation, which makes which
makes no sense whatsoever. Like Gates a SWAT model, was it?
I mean he actually he proceeded. He proceeded kind of
like a lot of the a lot of the military
types were dynamically and progressive minded of the day in
tactical terms, I mean, not political terms. You know, who
were around, like the Special Operations Forces community, you know,
and in those days, I was before there was an
integrated command or anything, and it was hard to get
anything done. It's like in the individual commands. It kind
of what kind of made or broke everything was you
know who was in a leadership role. But but for
better or worse, LPD swat. You know, they they were
very dynamic, you know, and there's a kind of a
full repertoire of of of force responses that they trained for,
you know, and they were very serious guys. But crash
and which culminated in an operation Hammer, which the opening
of the movie Colors, which I think Colors is a
fucking great movie, but the opening scene or LAPD, they
just like swarm the city and they basically like they
basically throw bracelets on like every known gang member or
like everybody or like every or every like military age
male like flying colors, and they like throw them in
the county jail, you know, to kind of get an
idea like not like not just to like send it
to literally lay the hammer down and say like l E.
P D runs the street. But uh, they wanted to
get an under they wanted they wanted to also like
get these guys government names all in the system, but
they also want to get an idea like forest levels
that like major sets had you know, crips, Blood's Eighteenth Street,
you know, all those all all those mobs in in
in South Central and East LA. But it was uh,
but that but that that was to the end to
like community based policing. It's like, okay, we got the
spare plunk of our forces. Crash. You know, every every
police I think there's eighteen police district in Los Angeles
and every district had a crash unit. Now like a
sign to it, but crash had like city wide jurisdiction.
Like a lot of these guys had been actively gang banging,
like before they you know, went to the police Academy
l A. PD knew that and they did like vet
these guys somewhat, but obviously came in, you know, they
ran into problems. One of the things that blew the
fucking lid off of a rampart scandal is like one
of the one of those dudes who was affiliated with
death Row Records was like one of their security operatives.
He was he was an act. He was an active
LAPD cop. He got into a shootout with some other
off duty cop over like this over some traffic bullshits
and dude died. Like whoever he was throwing shots at
like you know, returned fire and killed him. And uh,
dude calls it in, you know, the other off duty
cops like yeah, like you know, I has killed this
guy who like you know, started squeezing rounds off like
lo and behold in, this guy's a cop. He like
works for death Row. He's clicked up with the you know,
the same set that like Suge Knight and all them
guys were. But that but that came about, like IP
tried to play it off like all this guy was
on bad Apple loosetle through the cracks, you know, and
unfortunately a lot of young guys from South central you
know or insane with into that that life and are
thugging it. No, that's that's not what happened, man, Like
they like they like the whole thing would crash. Was
that a lot of the guys were on record that
like a lot of their a lot of their officers
like on record with like different mobs. That's one of
the reasons why they were feared, you know. But that, uh,
that's one of the reasons too. Interestingly, also, you know,
like the Compton Police Department no longer exists, and they
were they were like a heavy squad man like, they
were very tough, but they they were kind of like
a micro cosm of you know this, they had their
own culture because and I mean they were you know,
they were their own police department. But they I think
now common is police bial county sheriffs, like like the
the so call fellas will correct me, but I think
that to his jurisdiction. But they it was like the
same institutional sensibility and Compton like in a scaled down way,
but like Chicago was different. Like uh, like Chicago was
done like like a thug police department and still is
in a lot of ways, but like they did stuff differently,
you know, and it was like the big the kind
of share punk of Chicago police was like the Red
Squad which endured until the eighties, you know, but they uh,
it was just different. But the it uh and less
like overtly paramilitary. I guess that's like part of it.
Like Chicago PD. The era is kind of like a
mowie thief, like the way the way those guys their
relationship to the outfit and kind of just like the
way they do things. It's like it's like low key
whatever presence, you know, it's a it was a different
kind of sensibility, but you know that was the big thing. Uh,
my big memory of Gates, you know whatever, Like I said,
growing up when I when I'd be in Sokill, like
you know, Gates was on TV a lot, and and
then like a lot of like kind of mainstream like
right wing guys like love Darryl Gates. There's even a
video game. You remember, you remember Sierras Systems that there's
those those kings Quest games. Okay, there was there was
kings Quest, there was Space Quest. Well there was Darryl
Gates Police Quest form like the Apple two C. And
I remember like a friend of mine, like junior high,
he like gave me like a copy of it, let
me borrow it or something, and uh yeah, like Darryl
Gates is like the only police, big police you in America.
We had like his face in a freaking video game.
But uh, but people, there's a there's a bunch of
like I remember fools like Martin Downey Junior like loved
Darryl Gates. But then the other side, I know he was,
uh he was like this hate figure for for for
liberals and stuff. But I remember when poor Reginald Denny
got moved on by them people in South Central. It
was the truck driver got pulled out of his pulled
out of his truck, and and and and beating it
into his life. You know, his skull fractures. There's a
horrible case. Gates personally arrested, served the warrants on those suspects,
and he was in like full riot gear. It seemed
tasteless to me. It's like, Okay, first of all, it's
not a role appropriate for a fucking police chief. Like Secondly,
it's like you're using this poor guy's victimization as some
flex like get out of here, man. It's it really
rubbed me the wrong way. You know, those are those
are very bad times. But but Gates, you know, he
also one of the things that emphathize to people about
the about the OJ Simpson case is that the state
deserve to lose that case. You're not just like entitled
to a verdict when you can't when when you know,
when when you can't account for the chain of custody
of your evidence, you know, when you've got like literal
clowns like uh like Chris Dard and Marcia clarkheading up
your proscatorial team. But the whole like people also don't
understand and some of the jurors attested to this. You know,
Mark Furman is a total fucking weirdo, like like a
total weirdo, and like it's not everybody's like oh people
just people just acquitted OJ because of racism. That's not
really what put people off about Furman. I mean, yeah,
that didn't help any I'm sure with some of those
jurors were like ignorant people who were like, oh, he
said the N word, but the context of how those
tapes came about were bizarre. Furman was a compulsive liar.
He was a stolen valor case. Like he lied about
being like under fire and nom and like like all
these shit. The dude, it's a fucking psycho, you know,
like that's the real issue with him, And it was
pretty obvious he and van at Are they basically framed
a guilty guy because that's just like what they did.
And this is like what LAPD did. You show up
on the scene, you decide how to you know, you
can fabulate a narrative about how you came upon the
inculblatory evidence. Then you kind of just like arrange it
whoever you want. And that's like what you put on record,
as you know, and as to what becomes the case
in chief. And I've had guys say to me, oh,
all police departments did that, and I'm like, no they didn't. Man, Like,
that's really nuts and really screwy. You know, that's a
screwy way to do it, and and unnecessary. You know,
like if they if they played that straight from from jump,
they would have gotten their conviction. But I mean everything
about it was like goofy man. And then and then OJ,
he's an armed man, he's wanted for multiple murder. He's
traveling at a high rate of speed to the airport.
If I do that, I get shot in the face
immediately by like swat OJ. They're like calling him on
his cell phone, like politely asking him to turn himself in.
So it's on the one hand, you're like framing a
guilty guy. We don't need to. But then instead of
like throwing the bracelets on him when he's when he
when he's when he's wanted for double murder, you're like
calling him and asking him to come by like at
the traffic tickets. I mean, this is this is real dysfunction,
you know, Like and it's and that that's one hundred
percent the fault of the internal leadership cadre of l
APD is not like God being liberals, like ruining police
work like they did a lot of this ship to themselves,
you know, and having uh and having and having dudes
or on record like with the crips or whatever, like
actively gang banging like in l A p D when
and and it being like totally above board that they're
gang bangers. But it's okay because this is part of
how we this is there's a part of how we
you know, we maintain our our high level of police intelligence.
These are the are four. I mean, that's that's totally
insane and you can't you can't put that on like
the enemies of law and order like that that came
from INSIDELLIT PV man. But yeah, we're coming up on
the hour, I think, man, let's let's call it. I'll
do a part three on Joseph Wamba and if you
want me to or if if you yeah, okay, part
will cover Yeah, we'll cover the onion field in Joseph Wambas.
I think that that's important stuff. But yeah, I don't see.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty nine
there were race riots in Miami. I mean I lived
in Miami for you know, I live in South Florida
because of police shootings and and and things. It was,
I mean, these were precursors to the to what happened
in l A. And they were bad overtown riots and
eighty nine I was. I was down there for that
and there was.
Speaker 2: No joking man, nuts man, Yeah, no, I remember it was.
It was. It was scary ship. Oh it was.
Speaker 1: It was open combat in the streets. It was open streets.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What in Miami too, because the cartel ship and
other stuff. There's like a ton of fucking hardware on
the street in Miami, man, Like everybody like teeth, I mean,
dudes like shooting it out with like.
Speaker 1: Like literally mac Ten's were like two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah crazy yeah. No, Miami is
no joke, man, And especially then, Yeah, you've been over
the South, man, Like that's that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: South Florida back in the eighties. Cocaine cowboys. It was
bodies dropping everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 2: It was like, uh yeah, it was. It was like
low intensity and sometimes not the low intensity warfare man. No,
My Miami Dade the police department was a serious police
Department too. Man, Like, yeah, no doubt, that's fascinating stuff. Man,
Florida the fantastating state. Man, and people like throw shade
on it, you know, like Florida man. And it's become
like a meme. I mean, and it's got kind of
a crazy history going back. It's something like the Black Seminoles.
Like you realize the Black Seminoles. It was like it
was like outlaw white dudes on the run. It was
like runaway slaves, like Indian braves who had been like
cast out of their tribe whatever, like the king. This
kind of like mad Max sort of mob. That's what
the Black Seminoles were.
Speaker 1: It was like Florida's Florida has always been insane. I mean,
they never rendered in the war and like they know
and and DC was like, oh, we don't care, We'll
leave them.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, it's it's an insane place. And yeah, yeah,
now that's wild. But yeah no, Well we'll do a
part three then and Wamba and specifically the Onion Field
and some of his other stuff, and we'll get into
like the Vietnam War and the OPD culture because they
were inextricably bound up. But no, this was I'm going.
I'm going to the inauguration in DC on Saturday, but
all would all want to be gone a few days,
like back in the twenty second. But if you want
to bang another one out before we go, or if
you want to do like movie night, we could do
that too, Or if you want to wait till I
get bag, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But well, yeah, we'll talk, we'll talk about it. I'll
text to you later, do quick plugs and we'll get
out of here. I gotta go do an o GC meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, sir, yeah, best way if to find he's
on substick. We'll launch the season three of the pod
in February. But there's all kinds of good stuff there,
including a pretty active chat. It's real Thomas seven seven
seven dot substick dot com. I'm on social media at
Capital R E A L underscore number seven h O
A S seven seven seven. I'm on uh Instagram, I'm
on t gram. You can find on my website Thomas
seven seven seven dot com. It's at number seven and
move a T h O M A S seven seven
seven dot com. That's all I get.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you have. Let's try and record something
before you leave. But if not, have fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah no we will, man, Thank you any