Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana Show. Thomas, Hey,
Speaker 1: how are you done.
Speaker 2: I'm doing very well. Thanks for hosting me.
Speaker 1: Of course. Well, this is a subject that came out
Speaker 1: of a Twitter conversation, but it's a subject that I've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot in the past, and I know
Speaker 1: you have some very strong opinions on. So let's get
Speaker 1: into this. Let's talk about the police.
Speaker 2: The thing to keep in mind is that modern policing
Speaker 2: it's it's it's as structured like as we conceptualize it
Speaker 2: here in the United States, is a subject of recent vintage.
Speaker 2: People seem to this idea. I mean, there's all kinds
Speaker 2: of mythologies are on the modern state that somewhat deliberately
Speaker 2: have been cultivated to try and seeing it in the teable,
Speaker 2: this idea that these features are perennial, like structurally, I
Speaker 2: mean as well as ethically, when they're not. So when
Speaker 2: you raise the issue with people that modern policing is
Speaker 2: kind of run its course and it's kind of being
Speaker 2: phased out, like people seem to think one of two things.
Speaker 2: If they don't know me and are particularly sophisticated on
Speaker 2: you know, political sociology and things like that they have
Speaker 2: this idea that I'm forwarding some some you know, some
Speaker 2: miner gift argument like I want the police to go
Speaker 2: away and they don't have a mandate. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2: I mean that that whether they're true or not doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: or they think of suggesting that this kind of lump
Speaker 2: and revolt, however contrived and you know, cultivated by but
Speaker 2: by organized political interests, it's just going to be like,
Speaker 2: you know, like public frusture is going to be such
Speaker 2: that you know, police departments becomes so kind of gilded
Speaker 2: and defang verbially speaking, that they can no longer implement
Speaker 2: the mandate, that mandate that they've been granted. I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that either, Okay, Like what I'm saying
Speaker 2: is that in structural terms, this is something that's run
Speaker 2: its course, okay, And increasingly, police functions are going to
Speaker 2: continue to collapse and do what in the Postcold War
Speaker 2: era has been viewed as kind of military and general
Speaker 2: security functions. Police services are going to be increasingly privatized.
Speaker 2: You know, there's gonna be less and less of a
Speaker 2: distinction between the domains wherein armed force enjoys legitimacy, either
Speaker 2: conditional legitimacy or an absolute sovereign capacity. Okay, and this
Speaker 2: is inextricably bound up with the modern state as it
Speaker 2: exists today being really rather obsolete. Okay, But to understand too,
Speaker 2: like kind of what these exigencies are that are are
Speaker 2: presenting these kinds of challenges to police departments, particularly big
Speaker 2: city police forces. Not exclusively, it's not just a matter
Speaker 2: of like you know, post George Floyd sentiment and kind
Speaker 2: of political narratives like those narratives were able to take
Speaker 2: a rude on grounds the phenomenon I'm talking about. Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think this is all very ill understood,
Speaker 2: but you think the point a lot that the American
Speaker 2: system like really mirrors the UK system, you know, politically,
Speaker 2: and was the father quite literally of a of modern
Speaker 2: policing was Robert Peel. He was also kind of the
Speaker 2: founder of the modern Conservative Party in Britain, Like the
Speaker 2: Tories existed before Peel's tenure as Prime minister, and he
Speaker 2: was he was Prime Minister twice, but he he kind
Speaker 2: of brought the party into the you know, into the
Speaker 2: end of the modern age in a lot of ways. Okay,
Speaker 2: And controlling populations at scale, particularly in a divided society.
Speaker 2: That's really kind of the conditions president for a modern
Speaker 2: police department. Okay, and make a mistake, the UK is
Speaker 2: a uniquely divided society and it always has been. Okay.
Speaker 2: That's one of many parallels between America and the UK.
Speaker 2: It's it's not just anglical and cultural foundations. You know,
Speaker 2: there's divisions in the UK that there's not in there
Speaker 2: weren't in in Germany when Germany was uh, you know,
Speaker 2: in that brief period it was, it was unified. But
Speaker 2: also with sovereign republic, there's there's there's institutionalized divisions there
Speaker 2: that that don't exist in France. Okay, And this this
Speaker 2: bears directly on on Peel's mandate and and why he
Speaker 2: proceeded the way he did and devising the first real
Speaker 2: urban police department. Peel was born into money. His father,
Speaker 2: uh was a career politician, but he'd made a fortune
Speaker 2: and textile manufacturing. So Peele and his whole family they
Speaker 2: were kind of insinuated into the They both had like
Speaker 2: one foot kind of in the old nobility. And I
Speaker 2: think I think Peele was a there was a there
Speaker 2: was a baronet or a barony in his name. But
Speaker 2: he also very much was part of the kind of
Speaker 2: nascent you know, industrial producer class, you know. And it's
Speaker 2: education from flipid that too, you know. He took a
Speaker 2: degree both in classics and in mathematics. He first entered
Speaker 2: the House of Commons as a very young guy, I
Speaker 2: think around twenty two years old, eighteen oh nine. But
Speaker 2: where he really kind of made his bones, as it were,
Speaker 2: as kind of a it's kind of a political manager
Speaker 2: and fixer. It was his home secretary, you know, in
Speaker 2: home secretary, especially in those days kind of at the
Speaker 2: zenith of the empire. It was a very important role,
Speaker 2: you know, and the mandate was very broad and it
Speaker 2: attracts not just ambitious men, but also a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of men who had ideas about you know,
Speaker 2: the sociological nature and the mandate that the office carried
Speaker 2: with it, you know. And he started out as kind
Speaker 2: of a conventional old school Tory. Initially. He very much
Speaker 2: was behind the institutionalized discrimination against Catholics. He did a
Speaker 2: one eighty on that. And this wasn't just for cynical reasons,
Speaker 2: because otherwise he wouldn't have stuck to his guns and
Speaker 2: the way he did on these kinds of matters of
Speaker 2: equity and so and social matters. He sponsored the Catholic
Speaker 2: Relief Act of eighteen twenty eight, which for all practical
Speaker 2: purposes repealed was glocally known as the Test Act, which
Speaker 2: had banned Catholics from basically all manner of government service,
Speaker 2: as well as making sure they didn't get officers commissions
Speaker 2: in the British Army that would have put them in
Speaker 2: instead influence, you know, policy in the in the outer Empire.
Speaker 2: This is very institutionalized. Okay, that's not just something that
Speaker 2: Fanians say or that you know, kind of like old
Speaker 2: school like you know what remains like you know, the
Speaker 2: kind of vestigial cadre of old school labor party types
Speaker 2: who you know who who emphasized that is, you know,
Speaker 2: being like a key tenant of the Tories as being
Speaker 2: this this party sectarian bigotry. You know, it actually was.
Speaker 2: The UK was Rabbi Yani Catholic until the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways they still are. Obviously, the
Speaker 2: situation has come amplex in ways it wasn't because you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's no longer a sovereign country and there's this
Speaker 2: kind of constellation of ethnicities that that don't have any
Speaker 2: meaningful you know, historical experience in the UK. But you know, incidentally,
Speaker 2: the reason why like in the UK, you know, cops
Speaker 2: are called Bobby's because you know of Robert Peel and
Speaker 2: also they're called Peelers, which is interesting. I think there's
Speaker 2: you know, uh, the former kind of trees like like
Speaker 2: almost it just like a mascot role of the ladder,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of kind of suggests that they're ops,
Speaker 2: like you know, it's I think it's kind of telling
Speaker 2: it's doing us as in the English language that I
Speaker 2: think I'm a subtle and some people will allow. But
Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the day, what I'm
Speaker 2: getting is what is what what is peeals? What appeals
Speaker 2: kind of progressive ideas about you know, the treatment of Catholics.
Speaker 2: And to be clear too, nonconformist Protestants were included in
Speaker 2: in these in these test acts, and we're technically precluded
Speaker 2: from like many of the same roles and being available
Speaker 2: to a lot of the same benefits and institutions as
Speaker 2: catalyps were. But slowly but surely there were de fact
Speaker 2: when the the jury exceptions carved out, particularly as a
Speaker 2: situation in Ireland deteriorated. But you know, there was a
Speaker 2: the law really from from the time of of like
Speaker 2: the English Reformation, you know, until kind of the end
Speaker 2: of the nineteenth century, like in every way it was
Speaker 2: tailored to kind of guarantee that this like Anglican hegemony,
Speaker 2: you know, like culturally, economically, like in every conceivable way.
Speaker 1: Okay, can I let me interrupt. Yes, were the Jews
Speaker 1: included in US?
Speaker 2: Yes, But it was complicated because like it wasn't like
Speaker 2: a lot of it was unsaid and in the case
Speaker 2: of the Jews, and it's not like there was some party.
Speaker 2: It's not like there was some like formal revolutionary cadre
Speaker 2: that was like a Jewish fraternal organization that that also
Speaker 2: you know, had the power to kind of like impact
Speaker 2: like legislation in the commons. Like there was defect though,
Speaker 2: but this also that even that wasn't as deep as
Speaker 2: people think. Before the white thing, before the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: it was just kind of like a non factor. That's
Speaker 2: not like this Israeli became the Prime Minister like Grayat did.
Speaker 2: Disraeli was he wasn't like Kissinger in terms of his
Speaker 2: personality or in terms of his values, but uh, he
Speaker 2: was kind of the Jewish Londoner who it sort of
Speaker 2: shed his ethnosectarian skin in real ways, he wasn't just
Speaker 2: some morno, you know. But that's a whole different issue,
Speaker 2: and the way that was dealt with was a whole
Speaker 2: different body of like custom and things that that didn't
Speaker 2: have to do with you know, Christian sectarianism. It's it's
Speaker 2: a totally iron thing, and we get into that, but
Speaker 2: it's if we should do it in another series because
Speaker 2: it doesn't really bear on this. But the uh, the
Speaker 2: writing on the Wall and ultimately happened of course on
Speaker 2: the heels of World War One in Ireland, like Peel
Speaker 2: realized like there was gonna be a real problem here.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like perfect storm of an increasingly radical
Speaker 2: labor movement that was also increasingly mobilized, the threat of
Speaker 2: general strike at the core of the Empire, which in
Speaker 2: turn could touch off a sort of wildfire effect that
Speaker 2: would spread you know, the colored dominions, and on top
Speaker 2: of that, you know, an open cientarian revolt in Ireland
Speaker 2: and in London and in Liverpool and in these major
Speaker 2: urban centers in the UK. Proper like the British from islands,
Speaker 2: I mean Ireland, obvis was part of the UK then too,
Speaker 2: wherein there were you know, there were ghetto wise Catholics
Speaker 2: who you know, appreciably appreciable numbers of them. This this
Speaker 2: could have been a real bloodbath, figurative and literal. And
Speaker 2: it uh was a frailty that people were aware of,
Speaker 2: like men in government and you know, men insinuated not
Speaker 2: just into titled society type roles, but who actually had
Speaker 2: clout and power. You know, they realized that there was
Speaker 2: a real danger here and these people had to be
Speaker 2: brought into the fold and made, if not patriotic, made
Speaker 2: to believe in good faith terms, that they had enough
Speaker 2: of a stake in the enterprise that they wouldn't try
Speaker 2: to burn it down. And a modern police force is
Speaker 2: devised by Peel and as well as you know in America,
Speaker 2: like you know Peel's counterparts in the post reconstruction era.
Speaker 2: You know, they they had the same thing on their mind,
Speaker 2: you know, modern policing. It's it's not just it doesn't
Speaker 2: just owe to the peculiar exigencies of having to manage
Speaker 2: theretofore you know, on uh, unthinkably highly scaled and complex
Speaker 2: urban environments, which you know, basically how is you know,
Speaker 2: one hundreds of thousands or millions of workers that staff
Speaker 2: the national economy. Like the way to manage that sociologically
Speaker 2: and politically, and the way to suppress the instincts to
Speaker 2: revolutionary violence. They're you know, intrinsic to these populations and
Speaker 2: the conditions they find themselves. They were pried very delicate balancing,
Speaker 2: and you couldn't just treat these people, you know, like
Speaker 2: uh like one might you know, Cooley's revolting in in
Speaker 2: in India or something like politically aside of the fact
Speaker 2: you don't do that anyway, you know, if if you
Speaker 2: live in you know, if you live in like a
Speaker 2: Western society of the era, but it's also politically it
Speaker 2: would not have been tenable, you know. You know, for
Speaker 2: contexts prior to that, in lieu of a police department,
Speaker 2: you know, there were night watchmen going back to the
Speaker 2: medieval period who quite literally post up you know, when
Speaker 2: the when the town gates were closed, to keep watch
Speaker 2: out for marauders or for military enemies, or or for fires,
Speaker 2: you know, literally firewatch. And that was you know, essentially
Speaker 2: a communitarian volunteer role for a younger men. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was some kind of stipend and compensation of a
Speaker 2: nominal sort, but you know, it was basically derivative of
Speaker 2: a communitarian impulse. And in the case of of the court,
Speaker 2: if there was a wanted man, you know, before the
Speaker 2: King's bench or in America, you know, before the you know,
Speaker 2: who was being hailed in the criminal court by the municipality.
Speaker 2: There were constables in bailiffs who were on duty full time,
Speaker 2: or you know, you deputize, you deputize a man of
Speaker 2: good standing, sometimes even a man who was a lawyer.
Speaker 2: You know, okay, you know, get a posse together and
Speaker 2: go fetch this bastard, you know, bring him here, like
Speaker 2: literally bring him into court. You know, there was so
Speaker 2: I mean that that that essentially took care of it.
Speaker 2: And you know, this idea that there's this kind of
Speaker 2: permanently mobilized armed force that u is insinuated into the
Speaker 2: community but also outside of it that literally patrols and
Speaker 2: in this kind of permanent you know and creates like
Speaker 2: a permanent visible presence like that didn't exist before. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that caused so many problems for
Speaker 2: the police is that a little over a century on
Speaker 2: into this like urban policing model, which not coincidentally was
Speaker 2: concominant with, you know, the War on drugs, the police
Speaker 2: became this They ceased to be this communitarian element, and
Speaker 2: they ceased to be this kind of symbolic sociological governm mechanism.
Speaker 2: Like they became this kind of secretive, hostile element that
Speaker 2: cultivated its own alienage visa via the community that it
Speaker 2: was responsible for regulating, you know, and this wasn't some
Speaker 2: conspiracy we're getting all out of ourselves. It owed the
Speaker 2: realities of the Cold War. It owed you, you know,
Speaker 2: the nature of criminality at scale in the late twentieth century.
Speaker 2: It owed the inability of social problems to be resolved
Speaker 2: by truly communitarian structures and as as authority, as official authority,
Speaker 2: both localized as well as you know, in absolutely sovereign terms.
Speaker 2: You know, that would hand like a dominion over the
Speaker 2: entire entirety and territorial territorial space of the country. You know,
Speaker 2: they they didn't know what to do about these things,
Speaker 2: so their fallback was on this enforcement mechanism that had
Speaker 2: the widest and the deepest mandate. Proverbially speaking, you know,
Speaker 2: to regulate human behavior and conduct at scale, and to
Speaker 2: bring to bear punitive sanctions on people who were unwilling
Speaker 2: to comply with these edicts, be them like moral or
Speaker 2: pragmatic or both. And that creates kind of a perfect
Speaker 2: store of hostilities, you know. But we're not quite there yet,
Speaker 2: but we'll get there as this goes on. To take
Speaker 2: it back from that, to be clear too about the
Speaker 2: test Acts and these laws governing the rights of peoples
Speaker 2: owing to their sectarian confession. This wasn't just superficial, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't just something that wasn't really enforced except in
Speaker 2: a capricious manner when the authorities saw fit to, you know,
Speaker 2: deprive somebody of of upward mobility for some discreete political reason,
Speaker 2: going to emergent crisis or something. I mean, this was
Speaker 2: very much a staple of the sociological structure, you know,
Speaker 2: and it basically people supported it. You know. If you
Speaker 2: weren't taking communion in the Anglican Church, you basically were
Speaker 2: excluded from public life, you know. And even if you
Speaker 2: claimed uh to not be a practicing kid like, even
Speaker 2: if you weren't if you were not actively engaged with
Speaker 2: the Anglican church, and if you did not have a
Speaker 2: family pedigree, whether you were rich or poor or neither,
Speaker 2: that demonstrably was was Anglican. You. You were reviewed as
Speaker 2: a as an accusant, okay, and you were viewed as
Speaker 2: somebody who is not to be trusted, and your neighbors
Speaker 2: would probably whisper that you were some kind of secret Fenian,
Speaker 2: even even if even if you were ethnically Irish, you know.
Speaker 2: And again, like I said, nonconformists were included in these
Speaker 2: measures too, But the Indemnity Act of seventeen twenty seven
Speaker 2: alleviate some of these formal sanctions. But there's a there's
Speaker 2: a complex history and kind of and like rather perverse
Speaker 2: history between Nonconformists and Anglicans that endoors really until recent
Speaker 2: memory with the troubles. But that's I raised this because
Speaker 2: that's my own heritage, and like I don't mostly like
Speaker 2: Michael Jones. He's got to have it when he says Protestants,
Speaker 2: he's talking about Anglicans, and I don't appreciate that, and
Speaker 2: not sex not because that what something against Anglicans, but
Speaker 2: because it's he's making a caricature of the issue, and
Speaker 2: you know, kind of employing an opportunity target and trying
Speaker 2: to cast us, you know, like like reformed people as
Speaker 2: a like with his like broad stroke, as if we're
Speaker 2: some kind of a junior version of the the traditional
Speaker 2: Norman aristocracy or something and that, and that's not remotely accurate.
Speaker 2: That's why I emphasize that there's a guy, he's a
Speaker 2: really good story and his name is Jonathan Jonathan Jonathan
Speaker 2: Charles Douglas Clark, and he wrote a lot about I
Speaker 2: think he's still alive. He's not. He's not. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's getting pretty old. I think he's in his seventies now.
Speaker 2: But he was neither like a Whig historian nor like
Speaker 2: one of these Marxists. So he rejected both the kind
Speaker 2: of the kind of tory what we view. It was
Speaker 2: kind of like the neo condish like progressive view of
Speaker 2: history and institutions as being this kind of mallible institutions,
Speaker 2: you know, in the in the Anglophone world, being the
Speaker 2: kinds of malleable things that you know, through this kind
Speaker 2: of process of trial and error and ongoing enlightenment quite literally,
Speaker 2: you know, social conditions become more equitable in like the
Speaker 2: open society because of reality. He rejects that nonsense outright.
Speaker 2: But nor is he like one of these. He speaks
Speaker 2: a lot like Hobbsbow. I mean he he. I got
Speaker 2: into an argument, not not not a hostile or cumulic Blowe,
Speaker 2: but I got into an argument with somebody the other
Speaker 2: day who credited Clerk with with coining the long century,
Speaker 2: that that terminology or that signified, and he did. He
Speaker 2: did speak of the eighteenth century as the quote long
Speaker 2: eighteenth century in similar terms that Hobsblomb described the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: And undoubtedly they were familiar with each other's work products.
Speaker 2: But you know, Clark wasn't really the Hegelian in the
Speaker 2: terms that the hobbs Bomb was. But he obviously has
Speaker 2: like some of those conceptual prejudices. I don't say prejudices
Speaker 2: and punitive terms. I mean, that's just very much the
Speaker 2: way he kind of his view of historical time is oriented,
Speaker 2: particularly as regards you know, mind as as the kind
Speaker 2: of prime move on in the historical process. But it's
Speaker 2: o point was that Anglican aristocratic in gemony, that and
Speaker 2: the challenge is emergent to its hegemony. That's really the
Speaker 2: way to understand everything of a power political nature. That
Speaker 2: happened within and without the United Kingdom, like really from
Speaker 2: the from the time of the War three Kingdoms, you know,
Speaker 2: up until like World War One. Okay, and I believe
Speaker 2: he's correct, and an adequately deep reading of Hobbes with
Speaker 2: somebody like Carl Schmidt was very very very adroit we
Speaker 2: you know, conveyed in his writings not just in the
Speaker 2: concept of the political but in the stuff he wrote
Speaker 2: directly on Hobbes. He's very much making the same point,
Speaker 2: although obviously like his topical his topical emphasies, you know,
Speaker 2: are are generally more focused on discrete features, you know,
Speaker 2: relating the kind of conceptual jurisprudness and things and and
Speaker 2: kind of theoretical foundations that you know are intrinsic to
Speaker 2: the kind of British cultural mind you know, and uh
Speaker 2: and such that there is a British cultural mind. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's it's Anglican and aristocratic and you know, so
Speaker 2: it's a real, it's a real phenomenon. Okay, and again too,
Speaker 2: like that's why the emergence of a modern police element
Speaker 2: in the UK it was different than in in Germany,
Speaker 2: whereby by and large, uh, you know, the poets I
Speaker 2: have always been sort of like, uh, an internal security
Speaker 2: element that was very much part of the military. Okay,
Speaker 2: that that doesn't just owe to the fact that, you know,
Speaker 2: the modern German state is the house that Bismarck built,
Speaker 2: and that kind of conceptual perspective, especially visa the police
Speaker 2: thing is very Prussian. I mean, that's part of it.
Speaker 2: But I posit that that only became that that was
Speaker 2: that only became a feature of the press and cultural
Speaker 2: mind on grounds the basic imaginety that was accomplished. Now granted,
Speaker 2: and yes, Germany's about one third Roman Catholic, but Bismarck's
Speaker 2: culture comp was tremendously effective and basically rendering the German
Speaker 2: state and the civil service that constituted that state at
Speaker 2: level of executive enforcement, the same thing of decision making
Speaker 2: had become very Protestant by design. And also sectarian challenges aside,
Speaker 2: and I don't minimize those. I mean Germany was literally
Speaker 2: ground zero of the thirty years of war. This was
Speaker 2: not like a minor thing, but there it was, despite
Speaker 2: the regional attachments to German and despite you know the
Speaker 2: kind of several populations who are possessed of discrete cultural forms,
Speaker 2: you know, like a Swabian is not a Prussian, is
Speaker 2: not a Bavarian. But there is like a German identity,
Speaker 2: like a Deutsche, like racial identity, if you will. There's
Speaker 2: not a British race, Okay, there's constituent elements of Great Britain,
Speaker 2: but I nobody would argue to the contrary. I don't believe, okay.
Speaker 2: And that's fundamentally important. And that's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why again it's it's not just it's not just some
Speaker 2: sort of like anglophone conceptual bias abstracted from historical experience
Speaker 2: in the UK and America. One of the common strains
Speaker 2: that is facilitated this kind of enduring like a mere
Speaker 2: between the two political cultures, like always do both us
Speaker 2: and them being like intractive, we divided societies and I
Speaker 2: will I will die on that hill. Okay. Now bring
Speaker 2: it back to Clark's kind of point and how it
Speaker 2: relates to our discussion topically after about eighteen thirty or so,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that yeah, the vast majority of not
Speaker 2: just aristocrats but like upperly mobile middle class types in
Speaker 2: England but also in the UK and and Ulster. Oh again,
Speaker 2: in Ulster, it's a little more complicated. People basically believed
Speaker 2: in like not just the divine right of the British crown,
Speaker 2: but you know, they believe their hereditary nobility was basically
Speaker 2: doing its job historical terms. You know, they believe the
Speaker 2: kind of parameters of traditional authority from tennessa theseics on word,
Speaker 2: with the Anglican Church being the kind of theological and
Speaker 2: esthetical and cultural lynchpin of these things. They viewed that
Speaker 2: is basically a good thing. Like nevertheless, there were political
Speaker 2: variables that were very real that were undermining it, you know,
Speaker 2: and a lot of these a lot of these sociological
Speaker 2: and sociopolitical factors were the same things that ultimately were
Speaker 2: you know, culminated like the eighteen forty eight revolutions, you know,
Speaker 2: which in turn also you know, kind of kicked off
Speaker 2: the decades on the process whereby revolutionary communism kind of
Speaker 2: became the default perspective of the working classes, you know,
Speaker 2: locally moderated as it may have been, by traditional cultural
Speaker 2: practices or a vestigial attachment to the national or local
Speaker 2: culture or just out now you know, like religious belief.
Speaker 2: You know that the fact remains that in every punctuated
Speaker 2: way there was cracks emerging within this structure that really
Speaker 2: for the preceding you know, seven, eight, seven or eighth
Speaker 2: centuries said had been essentially insurmountable, and such as threats
Speaker 2: to it were emergent, they were emerging from without, and
Speaker 2: the standard bears of these threat were characterized first and
Speaker 2: foremost by their absolute alienage. Okay, so this changed everything.
Speaker 2: But you know, and Peel the degree to which he
Speaker 2: quite literally drafted like a manifesto and like various policy
Speaker 2: papers on what the mandate should be of an urban
Speaker 2: police department and what its relationships should be to the
Speaker 2: judiciary and the executive and the Crown, but most importantly
Speaker 2: to the community that it served. He drafted some of
Speaker 2: his allies in the government to produce this document known
Speaker 2: as the Royal Commission on Constabulary Forces. And the report
Speaker 2: didn't just it wasn't just emergent as some kind of
Speaker 2: last minute policy declaration to appease you know, the official
Speaker 2: opposition or something like. There had been a serious committee
Speaker 2: corral to evaluate exactly how this kind of nascent police
Speaker 2: force I would work with the poor laws as they
Speaker 2: were called, you know, to what degree the police were,
Speaker 2: you know, to kind of like enforce these superficially paternalistic
Speaker 2: but basically punitive, you know, legislative mandates which conferred upon
Speaker 2: the local executive the ability to quite literally like place
Speaker 2: people under arrest for fratal services and put them in
Speaker 2: poor houses. You know. Peal was hyper aware of this potentiality,
Speaker 2: and he basically said, like, we can't, we can't become
Speaker 2: the kind of like uniformed enemy like of of the
Speaker 2: wretched and the poor, you know, or of the or
Speaker 2: or of the work or or of the working classes.
Speaker 2: You know. We can't just become to be viewed as
Speaker 2: this kind of like permanent uh cadre strike breakers or something.
Speaker 2: So what he did was in addition to that, in
Speaker 2: addition to this committee that you know then, as as
Speaker 2: I just mentioned from them of their findings and the
Speaker 2: form of his broad based study to the commons, he
Speaker 2: also drafted what came to be known as the Pelion Principles. Okay,
Speaker 2: I was like the rules one might have for like
Speaker 2: eating an orange or something, but it's not. The nine
Speaker 2: Plion Principles were one to prevent crime and disorder as
Speaker 2: and this is key as an alternative to repression by
Speaker 2: military force and as an alternative to recourse to increasingly
Speaker 2: severe punishment. So basically, you know, anything short of you know,
Speaker 2: some kind of seventeen eighty nine situation, you don't just
Speaker 2: send in the red coats, you know, to buttstroke and
Speaker 2: bayonet people. Nor do you start you know, drawing and
Speaker 2: quartering people in the public square like you know in
Speaker 2: the days of uh, you know, medieval rebellions or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, the people need to view the police forces
Speaker 2: as working you know, like with them, you know, towards
Speaker 2: accomplishing an equitable peace. You know. The second Peelian principle
Speaker 2: was that the power of the police to fulfill their
Speaker 2: functions and duties is absolutely dependent on public approval of
Speaker 2: their existence, their actions and behavior in the course of
Speaker 2: affecting custodial arrests, but also like an approval of their mandate.
Speaker 2: You know, there's gotta be uh that there's got there
Speaker 2: there There's gotta be some sort of you know, direct
Speaker 2: uh connection between you know, these constituencies and how they're
Speaker 2: represented and the commons and who represents them, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh an ability of those representatives like directly impact
Speaker 2: you know what what what you know, what what priorities
Speaker 2: are as well as you know as well as the
Speaker 2: kind of brass tacks of of how policing is conducted.
Speaker 2: You know, there's gotta be some kind of formal accountability,
Speaker 2: you know, to recognize always the extent to which cooperation
Speaker 2: of the public must be secured, and how this diminishes
Speaker 2: and proportion in terms the necessity of the use of
Speaker 2: physical force. And this is why traditionally, like British police
Speaker 2: don't pay heat. Okay, it's not because the British are naive.
Speaker 2: It's not because they got a culture that wasn't steeped
Speaker 2: in violence. Nor is it like in old movies where
Speaker 2: you know there's some that the British kind of don't
Speaker 2: know what the hell to do if somebody shows up
Speaker 2: with a gun. Like look, Actually, until recently firearms are
Speaker 2: pretty ubiquitous in the UK, and until the later eighties
Speaker 2: you could procure a weapon as a private person without
Speaker 2: a whole lot of hassle. The British sending the army
Speaker 2: if they need to kill somebody, okay, or if they
Speaker 2: need to like raid the hood and do like a
Speaker 2: bulls on parade thing and like break heads. The whole
Speaker 2: point of like the Pelion and the police is that
Speaker 2: they don't do that you know, you don't you know,
Speaker 2: you don't send you don't send a diplomatic element and
Speaker 2: to negotiate with a gun on his hip. Okay, that
Speaker 2: that's the ethos and this is key and that's kind
Speaker 2: of like where America parted ways with the Pelion concept
Speaker 2: and what we'll get into like why that is probably
Speaker 2: not till part two though, but number five of the
Speaker 2: pillion principles to seek and preserve public favor and partial
Speaker 2: service to law, independence of policy, and without regard to
Speaker 2: the justice or injustice of the substance of those laws,
Speaker 2: but without pandering the public opinion. And uh, you know
Speaker 2: in in the UK and historically you know how like
Speaker 2: in Robinhood, like the big villain is the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Speaker 2: Like a sheriff didn't used to be like a local policeman,
Speaker 2: but he did basically have like the executive power of
Speaker 2: the county with you know that that like concentrated in
Speaker 2: his office. And there's a big concern that these rules
Speaker 2: can't become politicized that you're talking about, you know, the
Speaker 2: ability to affect custodial arrests and hail people into court,
Speaker 2: you know, by way of like a permanent constabulary, like
Speaker 2: there had to be some kind of accountability, but it
Speaker 2: couldn't become just like another political office, you know, And
Speaker 2: that's uh I stipilated in the early days, the UK
Speaker 2: did a pretty good job of this, even if it's
Speaker 2: you know, something that's not that they can't really be sustained,
Speaker 2: you know, and in the absence as we saw with
Speaker 2: mister Trump, regardless of anybody feels about Trump, the man,
Speaker 2: you know, you got You've got a perfect example in
Speaker 2: the FBI, where it's like you have a law enforcement
Speaker 2: agency with tremendous power whose mandate disappeared decades ago. It's like,
Speaker 2: what what do they become? Like they basically become this
Speaker 2: They become this kind of like hatchet for hire for
Speaker 2: entrench political interests, and that's that's highly corrupting, you know,
Speaker 2: aside from the fact that it's it's uncomstable that you know,
Speaker 2: the taxpayer is expected to you know, continue to fund
Speaker 2: this apparatus, it's that you know that they're really is
Speaker 2: like a there really is a deleterious influence of a
Speaker 2: police organization that has become like especially owing to you know,
Speaker 2: the the evaporation of its mandate has become really nothing
Speaker 2: more than a a a cipher for you know, for
Speaker 2: political right, for political capture. The six plion principle is
Speaker 2: to use physical for us only when the exercise of persuasion,
Speaker 2: advice and warning is found to be insufficient. And again too,
Speaker 2: I know it's a lot of people and and like
Speaker 2: a fair amount of of flat foots like follow my content.
Speaker 2: We'll just we'll just fine. I was kind of surprised,
Speaker 2: excuse me to discover that. But uh, I hear police
Speaker 2: a lot, you know, talk about how like well, you know,
Speaker 2: the British policing broke as fuck. They you know, they
Speaker 2: they're too averse to force. And maybe they are. I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not like weighing in on that in absolute terms,
Speaker 2: but it's something that precludes the kind of current totally
Speaker 2: dysfunctional kind of culture of police thing like post Floyd,
Speaker 2: post the political theater, you know, post political theater promised
Speaker 2: one on the Floyd incident. It it just goes back to,
Speaker 2: you know, literally an inception. And that's one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why Operation Banner played out the way that it did,
Speaker 2: you know, And we'll get into some of that. I
Speaker 2: don't I don't want to turn this into the discussion
Speaker 2: about the troubles because it's outside the scope. But there
Speaker 2: are aspects that are relevant to the discussion. But you know,
Speaker 2: my my point is people who view you know, partake,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a going going on here and I
Speaker 2: don't want to I don't want to get into the
Speaker 2: topic here knose averse to the topic although it's quite unpleasant,
Speaker 2: but because that's how it's at the scope discussion of
Speaker 2: the grooming gangs and and and sexual assault of vulnerable people,
Speaker 2: particularly young girls and kids by by these hostile like
Speaker 2: alien elements. The reason why that's happening, oh, is to
Speaker 2: negatively political factors of you know, the post Nuremberg era.
Speaker 2: That that that doesn't owe to like the bridge police
Speaker 2: being in you know, unreasonably aversive force or something. But
Speaker 2: instances where there is on display of comparative reluctance, you know,
Speaker 2: to apply deadly force or to go in heavy as
Speaker 2: people think of it in terms of police work, you know,
Speaker 2: in a ing less lethal measures. That that that's a
Speaker 2: different thing and it precedes you know, the current era,
Speaker 2: and it's it's ideological shiles and things. The last uh,
Speaker 2: the last few are kind of brass tech stuff. The
Speaker 2: last few of the Peler principles of accountability, but the
Speaker 2: key one is to uh is quote to maintain in
Speaker 2: all times of relationship with the public because reality to
Speaker 2: the historical tradition that the police are the public and
Speaker 2: the public are the police. Community policing that phraseology as
Speaker 2: well as the ethos that underlies it as a direct
Speaker 2: import from the United Kingdom, and it's essential. Like regardless
Speaker 2: of kind of how you fall on the matter of
Speaker 2: what pass is good policing or like, that's not important.
Speaker 2: I mean it's important, but I mean for purposes of
Speaker 2: this particular aspect of the discussion, there does need to
Speaker 2: be like a communitarian aspect to the police. Otherwise it's
Speaker 2: not workable. And honestly, that is that is the future
Speaker 2: as the process that we talked about at the top
Speaker 2: of the hour, you know, kinda emerges in earnest and
Speaker 2: policing becomes truly a localized function once again. That that
Speaker 2: that's that's essential to local sovereignty and and essentially the
Speaker 2: maintenance of i've anything approaching law and order. And I
Speaker 2: made the point again and again you're gonna see moving forward,
Speaker 2: there's not gonna be I mean, I realized I'm dating
Speaker 2: myself with this reference. But there's I do not foresee
Speaker 2: like a Thomas Chitthham Civil War two scenario that people
Speaker 2: would be in nearly nineties. And I think him is
Speaker 2: a great guy, and for context, he was writing about
Speaker 2: this stuff in the wake of things like the La riots,
Speaker 2: where like some kind of open ross and Kreeg was
Speaker 2: really like in the running, which is terrible. I do
Speaker 2: not see that happening at scale. What is happening, I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean it's already underway, is the kind of secession
Speaker 2: of discrete communities, some which are deliberate communities, some of
Speaker 2: which have just kind of ossified around common cultural imperatives
Speaker 2: and identitarian signifiers, just like owing to accident of you know,
Speaker 2: historical developments and sociological realities. But as communities kind of
Speaker 2: become more and more self contained, you know, like we've
Speaker 2: talked about before, there's there's gonna be even greater and
Speaker 2: more layered complex interdependence of an economic and financial nature.
Speaker 2: But politically people are seceeding. You know, You're gonna see
Speaker 2: communities that are like nine nine point nine percent Black,
Speaker 2: that that are like nine nine point n a percent white.
Speaker 2: You know that that are like the same as for
Speaker 2: Raza or for like Easian people or other And similarly,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be communities that owing either ideological commitment or
Speaker 2: inability or unwillingness to establish you know, a deliberate living
Speaker 2: pattern a relative scale. You know, there are gonna be
Speaker 2: like mixed race communities that you know maybe or maybe
Speaker 2: even you know, community such that are situated in the
Speaker 2: aforementioned according to the afrementioned criteria, like going to something
Speaker 2: like vestigial attachment to American civic myths. But regardless, like
Speaker 2: any policing, it's gonna be a reflection in that community.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna have like white or Spanish guys going
Speaker 2: to police who live fifty miles away, like commuting in
Speaker 2: is in black code to polices and like vice versa.
Speaker 2: Like that's done, that's dead. You know, it's not the
Speaker 2: liabilities attendant to police work are just going to kind
Speaker 2: of force those sorts of developments. But also people aren't
Speaker 2: gonna be willing to do the job anymore from a
Speaker 2: position of communitarian alienage. Okay, But also again, you know,
Speaker 2: like what was the what was the purpose appeals model
Speaker 2: for police which in turn, also had strong relevance here,
Speaker 2: you know, again owing to the basic social visions which
Speaker 2: characterized both societies. What kind of derailed that really was
Speaker 2: uh really, it was kind of like the collapse of
Speaker 2: uh the cities as a low guy as like worker Barris.
Speaker 2: For the national economy, it was the Cold War. It
Speaker 2: was uh, you know, the earliest uh birthpaygs of globalism
Speaker 2: when they really when they literally were like two systems
Speaker 2: competing for global hegemony. That's really what underlay the war
Speaker 2: on drugs. Like I watched the film drug Store Cowboy
Speaker 2: the other day, which is actually a really good film.
Speaker 2: I really liked that movie. It's got Kelly Lynch, it's
Speaker 2: got James Raemar, it's got Matt Dylan, it's got Weymous
Speaker 2: Burrows and this weird cameo. But it's kind of a
Speaker 2: it's very much kind of a black comedy, but it's
Speaker 2: also a serious treatment of of of of like narcotic addiction.
Speaker 2: And it's also kind of like a you know, like
Speaker 2: a crime movie. But Burrows plays this heroin and morphine
Speaker 2: addicted priest. It's kind of like the grand old man
Speaker 2: of this community of addicts that's perpetually ripping and running,
Speaker 2: and he talks about the settings around nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: and he's talking about, you know, I foresee a global
Speaker 2: police state apparatus premised on the moral panic over use
Speaker 2: of narcotics. And yeah, there was an aspect to that,
Speaker 2: but the War on drugs is peak like Cold War,
Speaker 2: I think, Okay, and everything else aside. It totally and
Speaker 2: completely changed policing. It changed the way, it changed what's
Speaker 2: considered evidence. It changed the way we conceptualize a criminal offense.
Speaker 2: It changed the way the police view the community that
Speaker 2: they are charged with regulating, and vice versa. It changed, uh,
Speaker 2: people's attitude towards violence and when the police have a
Speaker 2: defensible mandate to apply it. I mean, it made the
Speaker 2: role something other than what it had been there too,
Speaker 2: for it was that much of a a categorical paradigm shift. Okay,
Speaker 2: and the War on drugs is coming to an end. Two,
Speaker 2: which is really really interesting and very important, you know,
Speaker 2: especially considering that agree to which you know, many aspects
Speaker 2: of the health crisis are being driven by addiction. To two,
Speaker 2: it's the obvious. But where uh, we're coming up on
Speaker 2: the hours we want to stop now, I'm sorry to
Speaker 2: be a party pooper. But if I change gears now,
Speaker 2: like I'll have to stop, like in the middle of
Speaker 2: a what I think is an important point, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Then I will hold my questions until the next time
Speaker 1: that we prefer.
Speaker 2: You can we can do them now if you want,
Speaker 2: or we can wait.
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me just throw one in there. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it seems it seems like in the United States policing
Speaker 1: was taken over by the Irish. How did that happen?
Speaker 2: A few different ways, at least in Chicago. Bostin's a
Speaker 2: bit different in Chicago, and they get into this and
Speaker 2: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which is a great book, like
Speaker 2: even if even if you don't accept Sinclair's you know,
Speaker 2: views on political economy and and and historical processes and things.
Speaker 2: But when the Jungle opens up, there's still like a
Speaker 2: vestigel like German American kind of civic elite in Chicago,
Speaker 2: you know, but they're slipping. Basically, the first unions were
Speaker 2: Irish immigrants, and the first mob here was Irish, you know,
Speaker 2: the Compone gang like went to war basically with like
Speaker 2: with with the Irish. You know that, I mean yeah,
Speaker 2: it was the north side of the South, So I
Speaker 2: truly are different. And there wasn't some like rigid homogeneity
Speaker 2: but between the gangs. But it was basically like you know,
Speaker 2: Compone's Italians like going to war with the Irish. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the Irish were running the street and the Irish
Speaker 2: and you know, the Irish were running the the the
Speaker 2: labored unions. So by consequence, you know, you had to
Speaker 2: give the you had to give the Irish the police
Speaker 2: department if you wanted to be able to regulate both
Speaker 2: of those things, you know. And then from there, like
Speaker 2: the Irish here they were able to capture they were
Speaker 2: able to capture the the Synegap Paratus for you know,
Speaker 2: like seventy years. The Irish are I'm not I'm not
Speaker 2: like transhing the Irish. I mean, depending on how you
Speaker 2: define things like I am Irish, like I don't really.
Speaker 2: I think if you're not running cap like you're not
Speaker 2: really a petty. But my point is, I mean, I
Speaker 2: that's one of the reason I make fun of them
Speaker 2: so much, just because it's kind of like an in
Speaker 2: house rivalry. But I'm not banishing the Irish when I
Speaker 2: say this, but there they are conspiratorial people, very tribal,
Speaker 2: very uh, very in group focused, very prone to intrigues, okay,
Speaker 2: and the best way under the national economic schema. You
Speaker 2: know that existed in earnest from the eighteen seventies until
Speaker 2: you know, really until the Kennedy era. You know, they
Speaker 2: that that was how you captured cloud, you know in
Speaker 2: the cities. So that that's how I you the guy.
Speaker 2: I don't want to name drop him because I I
Speaker 2: think he's retired now. I mean I think about this
Speaker 2: the other day, like I'm getting so old. But I
Speaker 2: went to law school and I became buddies with them.
Speaker 2: Like when I went to law school, this guy named Corboy.
Speaker 2: He's this big shot like King of Torch type lawyer.
Speaker 2: He founded the scholarship at John Marshall Chicago. Or like
Speaker 2: any Chicago policeman or woman can like get a full
Speaker 2: ride if they can like get into John Marshall. So
Speaker 2: I got to know like some of these flat foots,
Speaker 2: including the guy who went on to become a honch
Speaker 2: with a re turnover police. And I got to know
Speaker 2: him pretty well because like he drive me home. I
Speaker 2: mean we we had class on the weekends. We were
Speaker 2: both going to law school at night if he was
Speaker 2: working as he was, he was working as a cop.
Speaker 2: Then he worked the West Side, you know, I was,
Speaker 2: I was working a couple of different jobs, including this gym
Speaker 2: and Edgewater. But so you go to class at night
Speaker 2: and then on Saturday morning we had like lawyer ring skills.
Speaker 2: He was basically legal writing. And uh, he'd meet me
Speaker 2: at the Skoky Swifts l station and then we'd drive
Speaker 2: to the Loop and then every class he'd drive me back.
Speaker 2: It's the Skogy Swift and then I'd go home to Evanston.
Speaker 2: So like I got to know him, went pretty well.
Speaker 2: And he was the third generation cop. Like his brother
Speaker 2: was a cop, his dad was a cop, his grandfather
Speaker 2: been a cop, you know, and it's uh, it was interesting.
Speaker 2: And and he married a lady who was very nice.
Speaker 2: And he'd met her at is U where a lot
Speaker 2: of cops used to go to college. I don't know
Speaker 2: what today, but they're their police science program. It was
Speaker 2: kind of a Feaer system for Chicago bed. But he
Speaker 2: married a lady and like her dad was a cop,
Speaker 2: you know. But at that point, being like, uh, I
Speaker 2: got some insight, uh, because I'm like a north Shore
Speaker 2: guy and so there was plenty of Irish around like
Speaker 2: where I grew up. But you know, they were they
Speaker 2: weren't the kinds of guys who become policemen, you know, like, uh,
Speaker 2: they're the kinds of guys who were like lawyers and
Speaker 2: stuff and like accountants like their dads. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the prosperous serious that's not some kind of like flex
Speaker 2: and like my family because like my dad, like my
Speaker 2: dad's like a fucking genius, but he's like he's like
Speaker 2: this academic guy and basically like a game theory guy.
Speaker 2: We were kind of like we were like the poor people,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, and like you guys you did it? Is
Speaker 2: this first guy I know, like helping me. You know,
Speaker 2: he's like, but don't do what he does. You won't
Speaker 2: we get any money. It's like like I want your opinion.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that was that was kind of a tangent man,
Speaker 2: Sorry with it, and I forgive my I finally were
Speaker 2: being sick, man, but I still got some congestion. Forgive me.
Speaker 2: I realized I don't sound well, So forgive me for.
Speaker 1: It, no problem, uh, and drop some plugs and I'll
Speaker 1: end this.
Speaker 2: You'll end it. All. That's struck me as funny as sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to be a cob. You can always find me.
Speaker 2: The best place to find me is on substick. I'm
Speaker 2: on hiatus from the pod until the first week in February,
Speaker 2: but there's other good stuff that's popping up there and
Speaker 2: I promise Season via the Pod is going to be
Speaker 2: lit and tremendous. It's real Thomas seven seven seven dot
Speaker 2: substack dot com. My website is kind of a one
Speaker 2: stop location for a bunch of my content. It's number
Speaker 2: seven h O M A S seven seven seven dot com.
Speaker 2: I'm on social media at Capital r E A L
Speaker 2: Underscore number seven h O M A S seven seven
Speaker 2: and seven. I'm on Instagram, on Telegram. But yeah, there's
Speaker 2: big things on the horizon and I think I think
Speaker 2: the subs will very much appreciate and approve of these things.
Speaker 2: And I want to give since I'm gonna thank everybody
Speaker 2: for supporting the brand. People have really we've gotten like
Speaker 2: a glut of new subscribers lately. It's it's just great,
Speaker 2: you know, and your support makes this possible. I cannot
Speaker 2: thank you enough. And in a week I'm going to
Speaker 2: the inauguration and a bunch of the fellas and girls
Speaker 2: are gonna be out there. I'm gonna I'm gonna stream
Speaker 2: from out there, and I'm gonna try and capture some
Speaker 2: worthwhile footage and b roles. So there's had to look
Speaker 2: forward to also. But that's that's what I got, all.
Speaker 1: Right, man, Till the next time, Thank you. I want
Speaker 1: to welcome everyone back to the Beginiana Show, Thomas Hey,
Speaker 1: part two of the police series. How you doing, man?
Speaker 2: I don't well, thank you man. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 2: was pretty Part one seemed to be pretty well received. People. Uh,
Speaker 2: I guess some of the subs were confused that the
Speaker 2: whole thing wasn't on YouTube. I don't know why. In
Speaker 2: the description it said it was just like a preview.
Speaker 1: But let me address that real quick in the beginning
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the videos are not going
Speaker 1: to be on YouTube, rumble bit shoot anymore. You get
Speaker 1: a preview. If you decided something you want to watch,
Speaker 1: you can go over to one of the podcast apps
Speaker 1: and listen to it. Yeah, just not knowing that I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna put out video anymore.
Speaker 2: No, No, that makes perfect sense, man. And and yeah,
Speaker 2: like I didn't think it was confusing or anything that's
Speaker 2: that seems like a perfectly reasonable way to do it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's that's great.
Speaker 1: If it's a particularly if it's a subject that I
Speaker 1: think we need video for, I'll release it for subscribers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, no, that that that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, I I wasn't confused by the whole thing,
Speaker 2: but a handful of people hit me up about it,
Speaker 2: so yeah, thanks for thanks for shouting it out. I think, uh,
Speaker 2: I think we finished it off last time talking about
Speaker 2: Robert Peel and like the Peel Principles and they you know,
Speaker 2: I emphasize that not to be pedantic or because I
Speaker 2: get excited about trivialities and the historical record. But again
Speaker 2: that agree to which policing really is a political phenomenon.
Speaker 2: It's not. It's it's not the necessity whereby, oh, the
Speaker 2: police have always been here, you know, the police have
Speaker 2: existed for forty thousand years, like basically since man became
Speaker 2: like sentient, and if they go away, there's anarchy. That's
Speaker 2: not why you have a police department, you know. And
Speaker 2: the American model the reason why there's not like there's
Speaker 2: not like an American version of like the German order
Speaker 2: police that are like part of the National Guard or
Speaker 2: something is because there's a there's a strange situation in
Speaker 2: the UK and America and for clarity to like, you know,
Speaker 2: Peel absolutely was the thought, wasn't is the father of
Speaker 2: modern what's called like metropolitan policing. The first, the first
Speaker 2: true police department came from Scotland. That's a get another
Speaker 2: thing that like the Scottish came up with in uh
Speaker 2: in this the City of Glasgow Police like the first
Speaker 2: like the first professional police department. They were established my
Speaker 2: an Act of Parliament in eighteen hundred. I knew that,
Speaker 2: but some of the some of like the scot some
Speaker 2: of the Pikey's like shouted out and like what the
Speaker 2: fuck the first police was quoting the quotes. So there
Speaker 2: you go and Peel the London the London Metropolitan Police
Speaker 2: were created by the Peace the Peace Preservation Act of
Speaker 2: eighteen fourteen and Peel essentially like drafted that in all
Speaker 2: but name. I don't know if he's credited as as
Speaker 2: as the primary author, but yeah, for context in at
Speaker 2: the turn of the nineteenth century, London had it had
Speaker 2: four hundred fifty constables and service of the Kings or
Speaker 2: Queen's bench and forty hundred night watchmen, you know, and
Speaker 2: it was, uh, it wasn't within the contemplation that there'd
Speaker 2: be like a permanent professional police force until Peel's reforms
Speaker 2: and when he became Home Secretary. That's really when it
Speaker 2: began in earnest. But there were significance to us in
Speaker 2: this country. You know, everything kind of changed with the
Speaker 2: New Deal regime and subsequent and you know, one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why is people might age and older. Remember
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why it was a big deal
Speaker 2: when the media kind of turned on LAPD and you know,
Speaker 2: when the Rodney King incident happened, and then like the
Speaker 2: subsequent you know, like race war came about. I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not being shrill. I mean that there really was
Speaker 2: a race war. You know. I think people kind of
Speaker 2: confused William H. Parker with Darryl Gates. And I've noticed
Speaker 2: that too because a lot of these it's fading because
Speaker 2: like nobody takes woke shit seriously anymore. But at that
Speaker 2: at the peak of that garbage, like I think around
Speaker 2: like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, there was a lot of these.
Speaker 2: There was a handful like history as a Los Angeles
Speaker 2: that made sound of a splash, and it kind of
Speaker 2: me you know, a kind of mainstream academ which is
Speaker 2: very midwood stuff. But there was this big effort to
Speaker 2: kind of slander William H. Parker, and I realized because
Speaker 2: I'm like, why they singling out Parker? And I'll get
Speaker 2: to why that's weird in a minute. But then I
Speaker 2: realized a lot of these people, I think Parker and
Speaker 2: Gates are the same guy. You know, in Gates, I
Speaker 2: I think Gates was kind of an ugly guy, like
Speaker 2: not not for this, not for the reasons that a
Speaker 2: lot of left wingers do, but I you know, I
Speaker 2: I'll get into why I think that in a bit.
Speaker 2: But but Parker, Parker was this big progressive, you know,
Speaker 2: he and his He's kind of like the American Robert
Speaker 2: Peel in some ways, you know, because like policing before
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties, really in America, it's like corruption was
Speaker 2: kind of taken for granted, Like I mean, like graft
Speaker 2: like besy was understood, like in any big city you
Speaker 2: can like pay off the cops and get them off
Speaker 2: your back. It was very ad hoc. I think that
Speaker 2: until I think I think in the nineteen forties, the
Speaker 2: city of Miami you had literally two sworn police officers,
Speaker 2: you know, and even in cities where you had, you know,
Speaker 2: a more mobilized police force, like Chicago, it didn't. It
Speaker 2: didn't function the way like we think of it. They
Speaker 2: were kind of like de facto, like you know, union
Speaker 2: busters and strike breakers. You know, you kind of rely
Speaker 2: on police services and you could like pay them to
Speaker 2: show up like Below Board, you know. And it was
Speaker 2: not in Gangs in New York, which I think is
Speaker 2: a really great film, although like a lot of people
Speaker 2: trash it for reasons I don't quite understand, but I
Speaker 2: like it for a lot of reasons. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: the only film that really deals with kind of the
Speaker 2: the web life was like in big northern cities during
Speaker 2: the War between the States. But Happy Jack, you know,
Speaker 2: the the thug, like the like the policeman played by
Speaker 2: John c Riley. He was like out there thugginghead like
Speaker 2: that was pretty realistic, like by all accounts, man like that.
Speaker 2: That's like what the police were like. You know.
Speaker 1: There was a show I can't remember if it was
Speaker 1: on AMC or History, but it was. It only did
Speaker 1: two seasons it was called copper uh.
Speaker 2: Huh, and it was I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was really good, and it really it
Speaker 1: did a good job of showing it would be late
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, eighteen eighties, eighteen nineties, and it did a
Speaker 1: really good job of showing just exactly that the whole
Speaker 1: John c Riley thing about how they were a lot
Speaker 1: of them were just thugs. A lot of them grew
Speaker 1: up thugs or they came back from the war and
Speaker 1: they had nothing else that they could do, and they
Speaker 1: they got thrown into into policing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were good at strong arming people when they
Speaker 2: they and they yeah, and they were good with with
Speaker 2: the with a hand on which at nose days. I
Speaker 2: mean today, I'm still a terrible pistol shot. But these
Speaker 2: days it's a lot easier to stay Ontario the pistol
Speaker 2: than if you're using some old cold forty by peacemaker,
Speaker 2: you know, like even I mean, you know all that
Speaker 2: you're a gun guy. But but yes, that's you know,
Speaker 2: it's basically what the police were. It's not some that's
Speaker 2: not some progressive myth about you know, the bad guy
Speaker 2: police or something. I mean, it's a fact. But it
Speaker 2: but Parker, you know, all kinds of in every sense
Speaker 2: in public policy, you know, always making the point that
Speaker 2: sociology was a real discipline, like because of the Cold
Speaker 2: War and because of the managerial state. And Parker was
Speaker 2: one of these guys. I'll get to do his background
Speaker 2: in a minute. But in the nineteen fifties and sixties,
Speaker 2: like big city police chiefs or in Chicago police superintendent
Speaker 2: says we call them, they weren't just like career cops
Speaker 2: who you know, had like the ear of the mirror.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's definitely some of that, but this idea
Speaker 2: of you know, a cop needs to be some like
Speaker 2: college educated type with with you know, preferably with the
Speaker 2: with a kind of prestige degree, you know, which in
Speaker 2: those days supposed like a degree in sociology, your economics
Speaker 2: or like urban planning or something. You know, Like this
Speaker 2: was a big thing, you know, and that's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why Parker didn't like a Hollywood But the
Speaker 2: reason why shows like Dragnet were a big deal, Like
Speaker 2: they worked with La PD, and Parker cultivated that, you know,
Speaker 2: I get La Confidential. How that guy played like Kevin
Speaker 2: Space even sends he's like always wearing h he's always
Speaker 2: wearing Italian suits, and he's got like manicured fingernails, and
Speaker 2: he's he's consulting with a guy he was supposed to
Speaker 2: be Jack Webb. I'm dragnet. Like that was the real thing,
Speaker 2: Like the Hollywood LA Cop Who knows who had them?
Speaker 2: You know, who's interface of the media in a way
Speaker 2: that that is essential kind of the public image, you know,
Speaker 2: like they had stuff all came from Parker and uh,
Speaker 2: you know that this was the l E PD was
Speaker 2: held out as like the model police force, and if
Speaker 2: you read the kind of stuff Parker said, it was
Speaker 2: all like the Peel principles. You know, it's like we're
Speaker 2: a community based police department. You know, like we're not here,
Speaker 2: you know, just to arrest people and and smack people up.
Speaker 2: You know, Uh, We're not just a bunch of stripe breakers.
Speaker 2: Like he was like this big progressive who like was
Speaker 2: was a who I mean, That's why it's weird they're
Speaker 2: trying to present him as this kind of like clansman
Speaker 2: type or something like, because he wasn't at all. He
Speaker 2: was like this big progressive and his big thing was
Speaker 2: that like the the La County sheriffs. The had a
Speaker 2: reputation as being kind of like very redneck issh and
Speaker 2: very rough, and his whole thing was like, we're not
Speaker 2: like those guys, you know. Uh, Parker like high he
Speaker 2: was into hiring blacks and uh and like mestizel people,
Speaker 2: you know, the police their own hoods and stuff like this.
Speaker 2: That was like this whole thing, you know, and like that.
Speaker 2: People might be like, well, that's just like police work,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that's why it's police work because of Parker.
Speaker 2: And Parker was falling back on this stuff from the
Speaker 2: UK because he was an educated guy and like most
Speaker 2: of these guys, you know, he came up through the
Speaker 2: service during the War two, like he'd been born in
Speaker 2: uh in the Dakotas and found his way to give
Speaker 2: me one second, my machine's freaking out there, we go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was born he was born in South Dakota and
Speaker 2: made his way uh in Deadwood, you know, which has
Speaker 2: like an auspicious heritage as regards law enforcement and stuff.
Speaker 2: And then he, uh, he made his way to southern
Speaker 2: California like a lot of like a lot of people
Speaker 2: did from that part of the country, including my paternal grandfather.
Speaker 2: His uh, his grandfather, William H. Parker, was a war hero.
Speaker 2: He fought up to the Union Army and in the
Speaker 2: War between the States and later served in Congress. And
Speaker 2: Parker was, uh, he was very Catholic, which obviously was unusual.
Speaker 2: And in uh in like Los Angeles at the time,
Speaker 2: which was which is kind of like a wasp it was.
Speaker 2: It was a really it was kind of like a
Speaker 2: wasp bread out like literally like rich waspy people. He
Speaker 2: kind of settled it and those people like their their
Speaker 2: descendants like still have a lot of cloud there, you know.
Speaker 2: And and then and there was a lot of like
Speaker 2: okies too, you know who like working in poor like
Speaker 2: white folks. But you know, Parker was kind of outside
Speaker 2: of that culture. But he uh he joined l A.
Speaker 2: P d. And know, it was the eighteenth nine twenty,
Speaker 2: he said, when he was going to law school, and
Speaker 2: it's the idea was that it was just going to
Speaker 2: like put him through school and it was like something
Speaker 2: to do and like, you know, well during the course
Speaker 2: of his studies and he said he could learn like,
Speaker 2: you know, stuff about public policy or whatever. I'm at
Speaker 2: the road in terms of functional application of the law,
Speaker 2: you know, like in an executive role at street level.
Speaker 2: But he decided every patch, the bar exam. He just
Speaker 2: he decided to He decided to stay on is early
Speaker 2: he early on, like he was a big advocate of
Speaker 2: like a police the police union, which at that time,
Speaker 2: I think the the New York and Chicago or paternal
Speaker 2: or a police were already a thing. But like the
Speaker 2: idea of public sector unions, I wouldn't gonna be wrong.
Speaker 2: Like police work in them days was a lot different
Speaker 2: than today, and like those guys actually did need some
Speaker 2: kind of formal representation visa via the city council and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not like ridiculous bullshit like I make
Speaker 2: a teacher's union. But you know, public sector unions weren't
Speaker 2: a thing, and uh back in those days in California,
Speaker 2: I think throughout the state, so that there was any
Speaker 2: kind of like cop representation, and in terms of organized labor,
Speaker 2: it was generally like a police and firefighters union, and
Speaker 2: that was that was his primary role. You know, he
Speaker 2: wasn't mostly a beat cop, but he did. He took
Speaker 2: leave to go fight in uh World War Two, and
Speaker 2: he was in, UH he was in during combat. He
Speaker 2: got a purple Heart for wounds that he received in Normandy,
Speaker 2: and he'd been in uh, he'd been at the assault
Speaker 2: in Sardinia, and because his background as a cop, they
Speaker 2: put him. He was both in the role. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like a counterinsurgency enter like in theater. He was
Speaker 2: responsible for POWs and stuff and detention, as well as
Speaker 2: you know, kind of policing, uh the ranks post occupation
Speaker 2: in Munich and stuff. That's a uh, that's a resume.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to cast an ominous light on Parker,
Speaker 2: but that's a resume. Not unlike John Burge, although Burge
Speaker 2: I believe was engaged in Phoenix for raumsy stuff and
Speaker 2: not for those that don't know, Burge was he was
Speaker 2: a homicide police here in Chicago, very feared guy. His
Speaker 2: name rang out and he he got indicted like years
Speaker 2: after he retired from torturing suspects, procuring all these dubious
Speaker 2: confessions that were procured under duress. But that agree to
Speaker 2: what the military during like the draft era, you know,
Speaker 2: and basically you know, World War One through and and
Speaker 2: the relationship of LAPD to the Vietnam War particularly is
Speaker 2: very interesting. Joseph Wamba gets into that. We'll talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about Wamba. But during during the World War
Speaker 2: two era, you know, like there was a glott of
Speaker 2: guys who who'd uh, who'd been in in heavy action,
Speaker 2: who became cops or guys like Parker who'd you know,
Speaker 2: already been for an officers and then left, you know,
Speaker 2: to leave, like you know, to join the service or
Speaker 2: to be you know, satisfied their draft allegation or whatever.
Speaker 2: But he got he got the war Cross. I'm not
Speaker 2: even gonna try and pronounce it de croix, the GI
Speaker 2: I think is what it's called. It's basically, uh, basically
Speaker 2: the French equivalent of the war merit cross maintaining ordered
Speaker 2: in the liberation of Paris. But out of the war,
Speaker 2: he shot through the ranks, became one of the one
Speaker 2: of the deputy chiefs, and by nineteen fifty he was
Speaker 2: by the year nineteen fifty, like he was a big
Speaker 2: shot and he he he's responsible for not just cleaning
Speaker 2: up graft at street level, but you know, kind of
Speaker 2: a insinuating la insulating lapd from like war to politics.
Speaker 2: There's one of the reasons too. I like mafia guys
Speaker 2: in the traditional sense, like couldn't really get a toe
Speaker 2: hold in California, you know, like I I'm sorry to
Speaker 2: keep citing a Hollywood movie as authoritative, but it draws
Speaker 2: upon real stuff and some people are familiar with, you know,
Speaker 2: like an LA Confidential, there's a scene where like Dudley
Speaker 2: like Budd White, who's like isn'tforced her, you know, he's
Speaker 2: like a goon police like they het word that he's
Speaker 2: like East Coast mob guys are in Los Angeles for
Speaker 2: some reason. So like Dudley has White in the goon
Speaker 2: squad like Shanghai these dudes and like take them to
Speaker 2: you know, take take them to some interrogation location and
Speaker 2: like beat the fuck out of them. And then they
Speaker 2: literally like put these guys like back on a train
Speaker 2: going back east, like all like broken up and bang
Speaker 2: up and battered. Like LAPD did stuff like that. And
Speaker 2: that's one of the reasons Lava was always an open territory.
Speaker 2: Like it's not just because the LAPD would literally fuck
Speaker 2: your world up, you know if you were an outsider
Speaker 2: trying to set up rackets there, but there really wasn't.
Speaker 2: There wasn't like any ward boss you could go visit
Speaker 2: in LA you know who if it didn't you know
Speaker 2: who peeps be like, hey, I'm so and so, you know,
Speaker 2: and my guy vouched for me, like let's do business.
Speaker 2: And I mean you have like and you don't have
Speaker 2: to you don't have just like you don't have the
Speaker 2: same hood structure in La Man. I mean, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like like East La span is traditionally south central as black,
Speaker 2: you know, and then you got like oki and white hoods.
Speaker 2: But it's not like Chicago and New York. It's not
Speaker 2: like there's like this like word system where you know,
Speaker 2: you were were like bosses on from the ground up.
Speaker 2: Is like how you got stuff done. So you know,
Speaker 2: Parker kind of yeah, it's like okay, any man in
Speaker 2: the airheads work cut out for him. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's important to distinguish that Los Angeles was kind
Speaker 2: of fertile grounds for a lot of this stuff and
Speaker 2: a lot of this kind of social policy experimentation. That's
Speaker 2: not to say it's a tabula rasa, but it's not
Speaker 2: only that's one of reason too, Like, I mean, because
Speaker 2: we just did a California series, this is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why people are kind of able to project
Speaker 2: on to California, specifically Los Angeles. This kind of confabulated
Speaker 2: narrative of its political heritage, you know, like one one
Speaker 2: way or the other to try and shore up a
Speaker 2: mandate of an ideological nature. But you know, the uh,
Speaker 2: one of Parker's big things and gags later ran with
Speaker 2: this will be a pretty very different reasons. But Parker, Uh,
Speaker 2: Parker drammatically reduced the size of LAPD and he actually
Speaker 2: militarized it in key ways, not in terms of its ethos,
Speaker 2: but his whole thing was mobility. And you know, again
Speaker 2: like his formad of experience at command level, and I
Speaker 2: believe the rank of commander as a police rank came
Speaker 2: about under Parker's tenure. But you know, his his experience,
Speaker 2: his form of experience had been in the service, like
Speaker 2: at the you know, in the military, and that perspective
Speaker 2: shaped LAPD. And you know that's why like air mobility
Speaker 2: by uh, like the Vietnam era was a huge thing
Speaker 2: with LAPD too. You know, like they make use of
Speaker 2: shoppers in a way that northern police departments do. I mean,
Speaker 2: part of that's just because the geography and the vastness
Speaker 2: of the territory they're responsible for, but it's also a
Speaker 2: very military way of like staying on target or I
Speaker 2: don't I don't know how the police what their nomenclature
Speaker 2: is for that. I'm sure they call it something different
Speaker 2: that sounds less ominous or or or direct the action
Speaker 2: oriented but.
Speaker 1: Not not not to try to be funny, but Mayor
Speaker 1: Goody and Philadelphia also used helicopters to change Philadelphia. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, that's a fair point.
Speaker 2: But the you know, the so it's on the one hand,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of like two competing tendencies, like the
Speaker 2: posture of police deployment away from you know, like uh
Speaker 2: like like police literally walking beats in uh the same neighborhood.
Speaker 2: It's just that they're insinuated into the community to like
Speaker 2: rotating officers, you know, so they get like a citywide
Speaker 2: perspective and get used to kind of interfacing with with
Speaker 2: every major population segment. And you know, switching to police
Speaker 2: cars over foot patrols. That was a huge Parker thing
Speaker 2: because his whole thing too is like you know, and
Speaker 2: being able to swarm a be you know, being able
Speaker 2: to swarm units to uh to to reinforce officers in trouble,
Speaker 2: you know, order to respond to the over running force
Speaker 2: like that was a that was a Parker innovation and
Speaker 2: uh this stuff, uh speaking of a wamba, I highly
Speaker 2: recommend anything Wamba has written. But the Onion Field, which
Speaker 2: is a horrible story. These two ILAPD playing clothes cops
Speaker 2: were kidnapped and one of them was murdered. The other
Speaker 2: guys survived and though the way he was treated was horrible.
Speaker 2: But you know, in those days, like there there wasn't
Speaker 2: you know, police radios were tied to the vehicle that
Speaker 2: they were driving, and obviously there wasn't the same kind
Speaker 2: of modern telecom and uh, if somebody got the drop
Speaker 2: on you in those days, and previously, if you were
Speaker 2: told to like surrender your weapon, you were like police
Speaker 2: were told they should comply like subsequently, and this is
Speaker 2: a Parker innovation. He said, like never ever surrender your
Speaker 2: service weapon, you know, like Besis, you should die before
Speaker 2: we ever give it weapon, you know, and the police
Speaker 2: just adopted like a more military mindset and like across
Speaker 2: the board. But at the same time, though, you know,
Speaker 2: like I said, like Parker was very much part of
Speaker 2: the sociologically progressive, academically polished class, that kind of bureaucrats
Speaker 2: who represented the face twenty century policing, and interestingly, Gene
Speaker 2: Roddenberry starred with lapd. You know, he's like the Star
Speaker 2: Trek guy. I think Star Trek's goofy. I'm not a
Speaker 2: fan of it, but the original series is a very
Speaker 2: much kind of a time capsule of of like the
Speaker 2: Kennedy sixties Kennedy or sixties. I realized it it endured
Speaker 2: beyond that. But Captain Kirk is based on William H. Parker,
Speaker 2: like like literally, like roden Berry said that, and like
Speaker 2: he knew the guy, you know, and he's like that's
Speaker 2: like Kirk is like this guy. He was like this
Speaker 2: man of action, but he's also like mister you know,
Speaker 2: he's always like exciting Abraham Lincoln in the Constitution and
Speaker 2: he's like he's like mister like appeal to legal authority,
Speaker 2: and we do everything by the book. He's supposed to
Speaker 2: be William H. Parker, Okay. And that's also why, like
Speaker 2: he's got like a multi racial crew and he's got
Speaker 2: he's got the Russian guy on deck, he's got like
Speaker 2: the effeminate Asian guy. He's got like the black woman
Speaker 2: who's like his telecom officer. Like this this wasn't just
Speaker 2: that this wasn't just token his time on television. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was part of it, but that was very deliberate,
Speaker 2: like this is this is whyam Mage Parker's police department
Speaker 2: in space, you know, which which I think is interesting,
Speaker 2: but ibe he had a kind of that kind of
Speaker 2: stuff I'm talking about. And Wamba wrote directly about this
Speaker 2: in his in the like he wrote it was in
Speaker 2: the onion field, and he mentioned this later in his
Speaker 2: life that like it's an ongoing like exam kind of
Speaker 2: the weirdness of the of the sixties and kind of
Speaker 2: the new the kind of new fangled progressivism of it.
Speaker 2: It was on the game to be called colloquially the
Speaker 2: coloquially the Blazer experiment, as in a blazer like a
Speaker 2: sports jacket. And uh, this jurist this town called uh
Speaker 2: Menlo Park in California, they hired this, but it was
Speaker 2: they hired this police chief named, uh Victoria Cizankis. Cizankis,
Speaker 2: I think I'm butchering that name, forgive me, but his
Speaker 2: Melo Park was at They to say that had troubled community.
Speaker 2: To say the troubled community relations the police department, I mean,
Speaker 2: would be a gross understatement. Okay, I mean this was
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight. That's kind of nationwide that these issues
Speaker 2: were emerging, but it was pret particularly pronounced in Menlo Park. Okay,
Speaker 2: they've been hit particularly hard by the nineteen sixties there.
Speaker 2: It's located just south of San Francisco, so they caught
Speaker 2: a lot of the same ship that the Bay Area
Speaker 2: proper did, you know, a lot of like a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: cultivated student radicalism. You know. When I say cultivated, I
Speaker 2: mean you know, the usual suspects and g os and
Speaker 2: things do what they can to provoke and orchestrate the
Speaker 2: kind of thing. But it just like real, like real,
Speaker 2: just like organic difficulties between the races, you know. As unfortunately,
Speaker 2: as you know, southern California's associated with North and South. Uh.
Speaker 2: The Memlo Park Coppers, their reputation is being kind of
Speaker 2: a kick ass police department, and during racial incidents or
Speaker 2: or anti war protest that got out of hand, like
Speaker 2: like the police would go in and kickle out of
Speaker 2: the ass. Okay, And this caused this, this, this this
Speaker 2: caused real problems, all right. So Susannacis or Susankas, sorry,
Speaker 2: Cesankas he's brought in and he's got this kind of
Speaker 2: like radical orientation about policing. And it was called the
Speaker 2: Blazer experiment because he did away with police uniforms. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: from now on, he's like, we're not we're not We're
Speaker 2: not gonna wear some paramilitary uniform with a sam Brown
Speaker 2: belt and like uh, you know, like a piece on
Speaker 2: your hip or we're not gonna do that anymore. So
Speaker 2: these Menlo Park police, they started going around wearing like
Speaker 2: khaki pants and these like green blazers, so they look
Speaker 2: like guys who's worked at a country club or something.
Speaker 2: And there's like this little like city crest on on
Speaker 2: like the breast pocket like you can you can like
Speaker 2: google is and it's it's ridiculous. And your your weapon,
Speaker 2: your service weapon was always supposed to be out of view, okay,
Speaker 2: either by way of a shoulder holster or you know,
Speaker 2: discreetly squirreled away like in an ankle holster, you know,
Speaker 2: because no one's never supposed to see it, you know.
Speaker 2: And there's this whole there's this whole litany of kind
Speaker 2: of rules for how you're supposed to and instigate like
Speaker 2: basically a terarry stop and like even if you have to,
Speaker 2: even if you have to, like you know, stop and
Speaker 2: frisk somebody because they're obviously strapped, or because they're up
Speaker 2: to you know, or because like your police instincts or
Speaker 2: however they characterize it in those days, tells you that
Speaker 2: you know that, you know, your spiky senses tell you
Speaker 2: something you don't like about this this suspect. So frisk
Speaker 2: imm and figure out the problem. Cause later you're supposed
Speaker 2: to always like initiate those contacts by you know, but
Speaker 2: by asking somebody if if if they if they have consent,
Speaker 2: you know, ship like that, which is fucking stupid. Okay,
Speaker 2: it was, it was. It was stupid, stupid today. It
Speaker 2: was stupid back then. And like a lot of this
Speaker 2: crap is coming back, but these days it's it's in
Speaker 2: combination with various other factors, you know, like like like
Speaker 2: policing as as it's existed is coming to an end, okay,
Speaker 2: And so it's kind of interesting to me, Like in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, uh, the the po model police work
Speaker 2: as far from exhausted itself, obviously, but it's interesting that
Speaker 2: some of this stuff is kind of coming back because
Speaker 2: if it's an issue of first impression as people scrambled
Speaker 2: kind of trying salvage this this obsolete model. But you know,
Speaker 2: this caused, uh, this caused a lot of consternation among
Speaker 2: the ranks of police departments because obviously there was these
Speaker 2: like like like progressive types, you know, and including uh
Speaker 2: Susanthas fans. They thought like this was great. But you know,
Speaker 2: a cops who were who were dealing with burgeining anarchy
Speaker 2: and real violence, you know in in Los Angeles and Chicago,
Speaker 2: in Boston and Philly and New York City. You know,
Speaker 2: being a cop was a dangerous job then, and you know,
Speaker 2: you you very much were out gunned, you know, you
Speaker 2: very much you were in jeopardy then in a way
Speaker 2: you're not today. You know, I realized there's cops in
Speaker 2: god forsaken places that are in fact under fire a lot,
Speaker 2: and uh, they don't have the kind of forces and
Speaker 2: being or the firepower to really be confident, you know,
Speaker 2: and if if, if they get moved on. But that's
Speaker 2: the exception, not the rule. Like in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: that was that was the rule, not the exception. Okay,
Speaker 2: parts police department was was was was kind of the
Speaker 2: exception because like they had all that stuff, but you know,
Speaker 2: like very very very kind of rapidly this uh the
Speaker 2: Blazer experiment. Uh, like people realize like this is just
Speaker 2: not this is not something that's going to work. And
Speaker 2: uh but the what did uh what what what did
Speaker 2: linger though? Is you know, the the like like career
Speaker 2: minded officers coming from more academically rigorous backgrounds. That's something
Speaker 2: that endured really until like the early eighties, and then
Speaker 2: by then like that was by then that was done.
Speaker 2: You know, for a lot of reasons. Part of it
Speaker 2: was a trickle down effect of of uh of military
Speaker 2: industrial imperatives. I mean, I know that makes me sound
Speaker 2: like some shopski. I don't. I don't mean it in
Speaker 2: the same way that people like Key and zach Lyites do.
Speaker 2: But it is a fact. But one of the one
Speaker 2: of the one of the many kind of coheinds of
Speaker 2: comical things about the Blazer experiments. The the organizational lingue
Speaker 2: lingo of the police department was changed. Sergeants became managers
Speaker 2: and police lieutenants and menlo were called directors.
Speaker 1: Like it.
Speaker 2: I mean that it's it's it's a comical bullshit. It's
Speaker 2: got like the kind like there was some of that.
Speaker 2: I don't like the Vietnam e are at military like
Speaker 2: in the Poga and the Poe ranks. It's just you know,
Speaker 2: a very strange era, man like this. But by the
Speaker 2: early seventies, all this kind of all this all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, and it kind of fallen out of
Speaker 2: favor even, you know it even even among a kind
Speaker 2: of the most art you know polemisis of uh, in
Speaker 2: favor of you know, police reform, which in the interview
Speaker 2: would you know kind of constitute a stripping of the
Speaker 2: ability of big city police to you know, to meet
Speaker 2: to meet brets. You know, this is like little remembered
Speaker 2: the day, and it's remarkable the kind of short memory
Speaker 2: people have. And I think about this a lot, especially
Speaker 2: when there's when the regime tries been sitting with propaganda
Speaker 2: about you know, domestic terrorism into in the policy discussions.
Speaker 2: You know, uh, during the early nineteen seventies, there was
Speaker 2: there was constant genuine like domestic terrorist incidents, you know,
Speaker 2: coast to coast. Nixon and Jay R. Hoover, who you know,
Speaker 2: even in the best of times, had a very contentious
Speaker 2: and not at all friendly relationship to say the least.
Speaker 2: This became such a concern that Nixon during June nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy Nixon haled uh Hoover into the Oval Office and
Speaker 2: he he said, have known certain terms that uh quote
Speaker 2: revolutionary terror was the greatest single threat to like civil
Speaker 2: order in America at the time. And that wasn't that
Speaker 2: wasn't hyper believe. You know, there was like the weathermen
Speaker 2: were going nuts. Uh. There was a half a dozen
Speaker 2: other you know, self declared you know, like Mawist revolutionary
Speaker 2: groupings that were dropping bodies and and and and and
Speaker 2: pulling off ied attacks. You know, there were the Patty
Speaker 2: Hurst incidents. It's almost so strange, like that seems like
Speaker 2: something that like like a Hollywood screenwriter had like written
Speaker 2: that Patty Hurst s l a situation into some script.
Speaker 2: Like people would have laughed at it, saying there's no
Speaker 2: way that could possibly happen. But I mean, but but
Speaker 2: it happened.
Speaker 1: You know, you had there's a lot of hijacking, a
Speaker 1: lot of hijacking the planes too.
Speaker 2: It became the norm. Yeah, it became something that was
Speaker 2: as common as uh like armed robbery and yeah, the
Speaker 2: the zebra killings you know, which were uh, which we're
Speaker 2: what's we're horrifying, you know, And that was like part
Speaker 2: of it was the deliberate suppression of of reporting on
Speaker 2: on i've racially driven violence, so as the you know,
Speaker 2: preclude escalation and the kindling effect, as it were. But
Speaker 2: part of it was also like the zebra killings, people
Speaker 2: don't know about them. It was this offshoot of the
Speaker 2: five percenter faction of the ny who called themselves death Angels. Uh.
Speaker 2: They went on this rampage of just random torture murders
Speaker 2: of white people in the Bay Area, and the police
Speaker 2: code UH for these incidents with zebra it's in it.
Speaker 2: It's ironically accidental that, you know, the implication of zebras
Speaker 2: is relating to black and white striping or whatever. But
Speaker 2: that was going on at the same time the Zodiac
Speaker 2: killer was was bodying people and and and taunting the cops.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of overshadowed. But this is a real thing,
Speaker 2: you know, and it uh there were throughout the seventies,
Speaker 2: there was there was hundreds of these incidents every year,
Speaker 2: you know, if not thousands, great and small the uh
Speaker 2: and then downtown New York even this got this this
Speaker 2: whole kind of air got kicked off. The summer of
Speaker 2: sixty nine, this uh, this commie radical named Sam Melville,
Speaker 2: him and his cadre, they bombed something like a dozen
Speaker 2: buildings like in downtown Manhattan, you know, from the summer
Speaker 2: of sixty nine until like that November, and then against
Speaker 2: the seventies as ninety six nine, nineteen seventy it only
Speaker 2: it only snowballed, you know, I mean, so it's kind
Speaker 2: of it was kind of fertile ground for uh. Yeah,
Speaker 2: by ninety seventy two, incredible as the city as I mean,
Speaker 2: back in these days, FBI statistics were substantially more reliable
Speaker 2: than today. In ninety seventy two, there was there there's
Speaker 2: two thousand and five hundred politically motivated bombings or ied
Speaker 2: attacks on American soil. That that that comes out to
Speaker 2: five a day. Okay, excuse me, this is totally insane,
Speaker 2: but that that's that's what laid the groundwork for kind
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighties policing, which truly is when things truly
Speaker 2: became paramilitarized, you know. And and Darryl Gates was the
Speaker 2: standard bearer of that, you know, and Gates is most remembered,
Speaker 2: I mean, I Gates was because I spent so much
Speaker 2: time in La as a kid, and Gate Gates was
Speaker 2: an intimidating guy, you know, like I any, and he
Speaker 2: seemed he seemed the paramilitary, you know, like a lot
Speaker 2: of big city cops either seemed they seem kind of
Speaker 2: like either like Keystone cop eurocrats, you know, like goofs,
Speaker 2: or they seemed just kind of like politicians like Gates,
Speaker 2: like seemed like a bad dude, you know. And he'd
Speaker 2: uh l a PD. You'd see him, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the L A p D. They didn't wear ties, they'd
Speaker 2: wear those like uh, they'd wear those like v neck
Speaker 2: like button. I'm sure it's like a vest. They looked
Speaker 2: like super modern, and and they were all a bunch
Speaker 2: of like in the eighties, they were all a bunch
Speaker 2: of like buffed out, like tough looking guys. You know.
Speaker 2: I was just I was used to like Chicago cops
Speaker 2: look like goons and the and they've always come heavy,
Speaker 2: but they like Scha cops. The air kind of looked
Speaker 2: like fat ass like mob guys or something, you know.
Speaker 2: So like in LA as a kid, I was always
Speaker 2: kind of tripped out by Darryl Gates and OAPD. But
Speaker 2: you know what Gates is most kind of known for
Speaker 2: is stuff like the CRASH program, which began prior to
Speaker 2: gates his tenure. But you know, the movie Colors like
Speaker 2: was about CRASH, which is an acronym for Community Resources
Speaker 2: against Street Hooligans. It uh, it originally was called TRASH
Speaker 2: Total Resources against Street Houlians. And I would say the
Speaker 2: references like we're like the garbage man, We're taking out
Speaker 2: the fucking trash, and LABD realized like when that would
Speaker 2: public well this this isn't like great pr But you know,
Speaker 2: Gates also was the father of SWAT. He devised SWAT,
Speaker 2: which initially was Special Weapons Assault Team. You know, then
Speaker 2: we have special weapons and tactics. But uh, Gates divides
Speaker 2: that during Parker's tenure, you know, and uh that was
Speaker 2: actually very forward looking, like one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: one of one of a million reasons why the FBI
Speaker 2: is like it's head up his ass, you know how,
Speaker 2: Like their direct to action capability is still the hostage
Speaker 2: rescue team and their operational paradigm like until very recently
Speaker 2: was that treat everything as if it's a hostage situation,
Speaker 2: which makes which makes no sense. Whatsoever, Like Gates a
Speaker 2: SWAT model was it? I mean he actually proceeded. He
Speaker 2: proceeded kind of like a lot of the a lot
Speaker 2: of the military types were dynamically and progressive minded of
Speaker 2: the day in tactical terms, I mean not political terms.
Speaker 2: You know, who were around like the Special Operations Forces community,
Speaker 2: you know, and in those days, I was before there
Speaker 2: was an integrated command or anything, and it was hard
Speaker 2: to get anything done. It's like in the individual commands
Speaker 2: it kind of what kind of made or broke everything was,
Speaker 2: you know, who was in a leadership role. But but
Speaker 2: for better or we worse LPD SWAT, you know, they
Speaker 2: they were very dynamic, you know, and there's a kind
Speaker 2: of a full repertoire of of of force responses that
Speaker 2: they trained for, you know, and they were very serious guys.
Speaker 2: But crash and which culminated in an Operation Hammer, which
Speaker 2: the opening on the movie Colors, which I think Colors
Speaker 2: is a fucking great movie, but the opening scene or
Speaker 2: LAPD they they just like swarm the city and they
Speaker 2: basically like they basically throw bracelets on like every known
Speaker 2: gang member or like everybody or like every or every
Speaker 2: like military age male like flying colors and they like
Speaker 2: throw them in the county jail, you know, to kind
Speaker 2: of get an idea like not like not just to
Speaker 2: like send it, to literally lay the hammer down and
Speaker 2: say like l E. P D runs the street. But uh,
Speaker 2: they wanted to get an under they wanted they wanted
Speaker 2: to also like get these guys government names all in
Speaker 2: the system, but they also wanted to get an idea
Speaker 2: like forest levels that like major sets head you know, crips,
Speaker 2: Blood's Eighteenth Street, you know, all those all all those
Speaker 2: mobs in in in south central and East LA. But
Speaker 2: it was, uh, but that but that that was to
Speaker 2: the end of like community based policing. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: we got the spare plunk of our forests. Crash you know,
Speaker 2: every uh every police I think there's eighteen police districts
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles and every district had a crash unit.
Speaker 2: Now like a sign to it, but crash had like
Speaker 2: city wide jurisdiction. Like a lot of these guys had
Speaker 2: been actively gang banging like before they you know, went
Speaker 2: to the police academy. L APD knew that and they
Speaker 2: did like vet these guys somewhat, but obviously came in
Speaker 2: you know, they ran into problems. One of the things
Speaker 2: that blew the fucking lid off of a rampart scandal
Speaker 2: is like one of the one of those dudes who
Speaker 2: was affiliated with death Row Records was like one of
Speaker 2: their security operatives. He was he was an act. He
Speaker 2: was an active LAPD cop. He got into a shootout
Speaker 2: with some other off duty cop over like this over
Speaker 2: some traffic bullshits and dude died like whoever he was
Speaker 2: throwing shots at like you know, return fire and killed him.
Speaker 2: And uh, dude calls it in you know, the other
Speaker 2: off duty cops like yeah, like you know, like that
Speaker 2: has killed this guy who like you know, started squeezing
Speaker 2: rounds off like lo and behold the found. This guy's
Speaker 2: a cop. He like works for death Row. He's clicked
Speaker 2: up with the you know, the same set that like
Speaker 2: Suge Knight and all them guys were. But that but
Speaker 2: that came about like l EPD tried to play it
Speaker 2: off like all this guy was on bad apple loose
Speaker 2: stood through the cracks, you know, and unfortunately a lot
Speaker 2: of young guys from South central you know or insane
Speaker 2: with into that that life and are thugging it. No,
Speaker 2: that's that's not what happened, man, Like they like they
Speaker 2: like the whole thing would crash was that a lot
Speaker 2: of the guys were on record that like a lot
Speaker 2: of their a lot of their officers like on record
Speaker 2: with like different mobs. That's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: they were feared, you know. But that, uh, that's one
Speaker 2: of the reasons too. Interestingly, also, you know, like the
Speaker 2: Compton police Department no longer exists, and they were they
Speaker 2: were like a heavy squad man like, they were very tough,
Speaker 2: but they they were kind of like a micro cosm
Speaker 2: of you know this, they had their own culture because
Speaker 2: and I mean they were you know, they were their
Speaker 2: own police department. But they I think now Common's police
Speaker 2: by La County Sheriffs like like the the so call
Speaker 2: fellas will correct me, but I think that to his jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: But they it was like the same institutional sensibility and
Speaker 2: Compton like in a scaled down way, but like Chicago
Speaker 2: was different, Like uh, like Chicago was done like a
Speaker 2: thug police department and still is in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: but like they did stuff differently, you know, and it
Speaker 2: was like the big the kind of share punk of
Speaker 2: Chicago Police was like the Red Squad which endured until
Speaker 2: the eighties, you know, but they uh it was just different.
Speaker 2: But the it uh and less like overtly paramilitary. I
Speaker 2: guess that's like part of it. Like Chicago PD. The
Speaker 2: is kind of like a moie thief, like the way
Speaker 2: the way those guys their relationship to the outfit and
Speaker 2: kind of just like the way they do things. It's
Speaker 2: like it's like low key whatever presence. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a it was a different kind of sensibility. But you
Speaker 2: know that was the big thing. Uh, my big memory
Speaker 2: of Gates, you know whatever, Like I said, growing up
Speaker 2: when I when I'd be in so call, like you know,
Speaker 2: Gates was on TV a lot and and then like
Speaker 2: a lot of like kind of mainstream like right wing
Speaker 2: guys like love Darryl Gates. There's even a video game.
Speaker 2: You remember you were Sierras Systems that there's those those
Speaker 2: kings Quest games. Okay, there was there was kings Quest,
Speaker 2: there was Space Quest. Well there was Darryl Gates Police
Speaker 2: Quest for like the Apple two C And I remember
Speaker 2: like a friend of mine, like junior high, he like
Speaker 2: gave me like a copy of it. Let me borrow
Speaker 2: it or something. And uh yeah, like Darryl Gates is
Speaker 2: like the only police pigs he please you in America.
Speaker 2: He had like his face in a freaking video game.
Speaker 2: But uh, but people, there's a there's a bunch of
Speaker 2: like I remember fools like Martin Downey Junior like loved
Speaker 2: Daryl Gates. But then the other side, you know, he was,
Speaker 2: uh he was like this hate figure for for for
Speaker 2: liberals and stuff. But I remember when poor Reginald Denny
Speaker 2: got moved on by them people in South Central and
Speaker 2: it was the truck driver got pulled out of his
Speaker 2: pulled out of his truck and and and and beaten
Speaker 2: an into his life. You know, his skull fractures. There's
Speaker 2: a horrible case. Gates personally arrested, served the warrants on
Speaker 2: those suspects, and he was in like full riot gear.
Speaker 2: It seemed tasteless to me. It's like, okay, first of all,
Speaker 2: it's not a role appropriate for a fucking police chief.
Speaker 2: Like secondly, it's like you're using this poor guy's victimization
Speaker 2: as some flex like get out of here.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: It's it really rubbed me the wrong way, you know,
Speaker 2: And those are those were very bits times, but but Gates,
Speaker 2: you know, he also one of the things that ampathet
Speaker 2: to people about the about the O. J. Simpson case
Speaker 2: is that the state deserve to lose that case. You're
Speaker 2: not just like entitled to a verdict when you can't
Speaker 2: when when you know, when when you can't account for
Speaker 2: the chain of custody of your evidence, you know, when
Speaker 2: you've got like literal clowns like uh like Chris Darden
Speaker 2: and Mercia Clark hitting up your proscatorial team. But the
Speaker 2: whole like keep also don't understand. And some of the
Speaker 2: jurors attested to this, you know, Mark Furman is a
Speaker 2: total fucking weirdo, like like a total weirdo, and like
Speaker 2: it's not everybody's like, oh people just people just acquitted
Speaker 2: OJ because of racism. That's not really what put people
Speaker 2: off about Furman. I mean, yeah, that didn't help any
Speaker 2: I'm sure with some of those jurors were like ignorant
Speaker 2: people who were like, oh, he said the N word.
Speaker 2: But the context of how those tapes came about, we're bizarre.
Speaker 2: Furman was a compulsive liar. He was a stolen valor case,
Speaker 2: like he lied about being like underfire and nom and
Speaker 2: like like all these shit, the dude, it's a fucking psycho,
Speaker 2: you know, Like that's the real issue with him. And
Speaker 2: it was pretty obvious he and van at are they
Speaker 2: basically framed a guilty guy, because that's just like what
Speaker 2: they did. And this is like what LAPD did. You
Speaker 2: show up on the scene, you decide how you know,
Speaker 2: you can fabulate a narrative about how you came upon
Speaker 2: the inculplatory evidence. Then you kind of just like arrange
Speaker 2: it whoever you want. And that's like what you put
Speaker 2: on record, as you know, and as to what becomes
Speaker 2: the case in chief. And I've had guys say to me,
Speaker 2: all police departments did that, and I'm like, no, they didn't. Man,
Speaker 2: Like that's really nuts and really screwy. You know, that's
Speaker 2: a screwy way to do it, and and unnecessary. You know,
Speaker 2: like if they if they played that stray from from jump,
Speaker 2: they would have gotten their conviction. But I mean everything
Speaker 2: about it was like, goofy man. And then and then OJ,
Speaker 2: he's an armed man, he's wanted for multiple murder. He's
Speaker 2: traveling at a high rate of speed to the airport.
Speaker 2: If I do that, I get shot in the face.
Speaker 2: Immediately by like swat OJ they're like calling him on
Speaker 2: his cell phone, like politely asking him to turn himself in.
Speaker 2: So it's on the one hand, you're like framing a
Speaker 2: guilty guy. We don't need to. But then instead of
Speaker 2: like throwing the bracelets on him when he's when he
Speaker 2: when he's when he's wanted for double murder, you're like
Speaker 2: calling him and asking him to come by like at
Speaker 2: the traffic tickets. I mean, this is this is real dysfunction,
Speaker 2: you know, like and it's and that that's one hundred
Speaker 2: ten percent the fault of the internal leadership cadre of LAPD.
Speaker 2: It's not like God being liberals like ruining police work
Speaker 2: like they did a lot of this ship to themselves.
Speaker 2: You know, I have a and uh and having and
Speaker 2: having dudes or like on record like with the crips
Speaker 2: or whatever, like actively gang banging like in l E.
Speaker 2: P D when and and it being like totally above
Speaker 2: board that they're gang bangers. But it's okay because this
Speaker 2: is part of how we this is this is part
Speaker 2: of how we you know, we maintain our our high
Speaker 2: level of police intelligence. These are the are four I
Speaker 2: mean that that's that's totally insane and you can't you
Speaker 2: can't put that on like the Enemies of Law and
Speaker 2: order like that that came from insidellit PV man. But yeah,
Speaker 2: we're coming up on the hour. I think, man, let's
Speaker 2: let's call it. I'll do a part three on Joseph
Speaker 2: Wamba and if you want me to or if if
Speaker 2: if you yeah, okay, part will cover. Yeah, we'll cover
Speaker 2: to the onion field and Joseph Wambas. I think that
Speaker 2: that's important stuff. But yeah, I don't see.
Speaker 1: I mean there were nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 1: there were race riots in Miami. I mean I lived
Speaker 1: in Miami for you know, I lived in South Florida
Speaker 1: because of police shootings and and and things. It was.
Speaker 1: I mean, these were precursors to the to what happened
Speaker 1: in l A. And they were bad overtown riots and
Speaker 1: eighty nine I was. I was down there for that and.
Speaker 2: There was no joke man, nuts man, Yeah, no, I remember.
Speaker 2: It was. It was. It was scary ship oh it was.
Speaker 1: It was open combat in the streets. It was open streets. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In Miami too because of cartel ship and other stuff.
Speaker 2: There was like a ton of fucking hardware on the
Speaker 2: street in Miami, man, Like everybody was like teeth, I mean,
Speaker 2: dudes like shooting it out with like like literally.
Speaker 1: Mac Ten's were like two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah crazy yeah. No, Miami is
Speaker 2: no joke, man, especially then. Yeah, you've been all over
Speaker 2: the South, man, Like that's that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: But uh, South Florida back in the eighties, cocaine cowboys.
Speaker 1: It was bodies dropping everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 2: It was like, uh yeah, it was. It was like
Speaker 2: low intensity and sometimes not the low intensity warfare. Man. No,
Speaker 2: my Miami Dade the police department was a serious police
Speaker 2: department too, man, Like, yeah, no doubt, that's fascinating stuff. Man,
Speaker 2: Florida the fancaying state, man, and people like throw shade
Speaker 2: on it, you know, like Florida man, and it's become
Speaker 2: like a meme. I mean, and it's got kind of
Speaker 2: a crazy history going back and something like the Black Seminoles,
Speaker 2: Like you realized the Black Seminoles. It was like it
Speaker 2: was like outlaw white dudes on the run. It was
Speaker 2: like runaway slaves like Indian braves who had been like
Speaker 2: cast out of their tribe whatever, who like became this
Speaker 2: kind of like Mad Max sort of mob. That's what
Speaker 2: the Black Seminoles were. It was like.
Speaker 1: Florida's Florida has always been insane. I mean, they never
Speaker 1: surrendered in the war and like they know and and
Speaker 1: 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, no,
Speaker 2: it's wild. But yeah no, Well we'll do a part
Speaker 2: three then and Wamba and specifically the Onion Field and
Speaker 2: some of his other stuff, and we'll get into like
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War and the LPD culture because they were
Speaker 2: inextricably bound up. But no, this was I'm going I'm
Speaker 2: going to the inauguration in DC on Saturday, but all
Speaker 2: we I'll want to be gone a few days back
Speaker 2: in the twenty second. But if you want to bang
Speaker 2: another one out before we go, or if you want
Speaker 2: to do like movie night, we could do that too,
Speaker 2: or if you want to wait to get big, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But techno, well, yeah, we'll talk. We'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: I'll text to you later, do quick plugs, and we'll
Speaker 1: get out of here. I gotta go do an o
Speaker 1: GC meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, sir, yeah, Bescially if the fine, he's on Substick.
Speaker 2: We'll launch the season three of the pod in February.
Speaker 2: But there's all kinds of good stuff there, including a
Speaker 2: pretty active chip. It's real Thomas seven seven seven dot
Speaker 2: substick dot com. I'm on social media at Capital R
Speaker 2: E A L Underscore number seven h O A S
Speaker 2: seven seven seven. I'm on uh Instagram, I'm on t
Speaker 2: ram Uh. You can find me on my website Thomas
Speaker 2: seven seven seven dot com. It's at number seven and
Speaker 2: move a T h O M A S seven seven
Speaker 2: seven dot com. That's all I get.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you have Let's try and record something
Speaker 1: before you leave. But if not, have fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no we will man, Thank you, Waddy.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pecamana Show. Thomas.
Speaker 1: Let's finish out this police series. Uh, what'd you want
Speaker 1: to talk about today? I think Joseph wambas in the
Speaker 1: on the menu.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I marked out Joseph Wamba for a dedicated
Speaker 2: episode because I think he's important. I he wasn't. He's
Speaker 2: still alive. I think he's got to be very elgerly
Speaker 2: not he's got to be on ninety he was very
Speaker 2: much a documentarian, though of the period in which we're
Speaker 2: talking about, when it was in when police modern policing
Speaker 2: was very much in transition, and when arguably it was
Speaker 2: a kind of a dizenith in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: it's administrative clout and it's it being respected kind of
Speaker 2: as an essential institution of government. And Wamba was an
Speaker 2: East Coast guy. He came from Pittsburgh. He was German
Speaker 2: Irish and his dad was a policeman out there. But
Speaker 2: Wamba he joined LAPD when he got out of the
Speaker 2: Marine Corps as a young guy, and I think he
Speaker 2: started about fourteen years as a police you know, from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty until the mid seventies. But for context, like
Speaker 2: a lot of dudes would all they'd relocate to la
Speaker 2: to join LAPD. LAPD was like the top of policing.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that was peculiar about nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one and the Rodney King situation, Like it wasn't
Speaker 2: peculiar that that happened. It wasn't peculiar unfortunately that it
Speaker 2: jumped off into this race war. But a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't understand that. Unlike Chicago especially, but also like
Speaker 2: unlike I mean, our police department, we all like a
Speaker 2: thug police department, you know, like we really do. I
Speaker 2: grudgingly like Chicago Feed for reasons. I've got like a
Speaker 2: complicated relationship with them, but uh, they never had They
Speaker 2: always had like a dirty fucking reputation. And New York,
Speaker 2: you know, they always had a reputation as being like
Speaker 2: corrupted by like ward BOSSESM and like mafia politics and stuff.
Speaker 2: But like LA, it was considered to be this like impeccable,
Speaker 2: impeccably professional police force, and they had a wrap for
Speaker 2: like not being quote unquote recently and like they actually
Speaker 2: had a rep for you know being you know, very
Speaker 2: progressive according to the relevant metrics. I don't like that term,
Speaker 2: but you know, just people understand what I mean. I'm sure.
Speaker 2: So the fact that this like kind of took a
Speaker 2: nose dive in the early nineties is interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: but that's Wambach started writing when he was a cop,
Speaker 2: and his first his first book was The New Centurions,
Speaker 2: which is very much kind of like Approbe. It's almost
Speaker 2: like the top gun of like the police Department. You know,
Speaker 2: it's about like hero cops doing this crazy stuff like
Speaker 2: a lot of and the centerpiece is kind of the
Speaker 2: watch riots and then he wrote The Blue Night, which
Speaker 2: was very much in that vein. But then like when
Speaker 2: he when he realized he could get paid as an
Speaker 2: author and his books were actually moving at volume, you know,
Speaker 2: he retired away from the police department to write, and
Speaker 2: then he wrote The Choir Boys, which is like this
Speaker 2: kind of savage takedown of lapd you know it like
Speaker 2: people get read to Catch twenty two, which I think
Speaker 2: is an overrated book, but it's like way nastier than that.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the short Timers. It's like really
Speaker 2: really nasty, but but not in a way that's unduly tunaive.
Speaker 2: I think it actually reflects the eraror. I mean it
Speaker 2: was before my time. You know, my civic memory begins
Speaker 2: in the very early eighties. I don't remember the seventies.
Speaker 2: I was born in the seventies. But in between that
Speaker 2: kind of trilogy of fiction books, like later we started
Speaker 2: writing kind of like hard boiled detective stuff. But in
Speaker 2: between Nat he wrote this seminal. It's probably the it's
Speaker 2: probably the seminal true crime book after in Cold Blood.
Speaker 2: It was It's the Onion Field, which was a horrible case,
Speaker 2: and uh Wamba was a was a police when this
Speaker 2: incident happened. And uh, I'll get into the details of
Speaker 2: it in a minute, but it these two police offers
Speaker 2: ofs and was were abducted and murdered or one of
Speaker 2: them was murdered, the other one got away. The guy
Speaker 2: got away. It's almost like he endured a fate worse
Speaker 2: than had he been murdered, you know. But that and
Speaker 2: the film version. They made a TV movie out of it,
Speaker 2: which one of which one of was one of James
Speaker 2: Woods's first roles. And James Woods, the guy he plays
Speaker 2: the cop killer was this guy named Gregory Ulis Powell.
Speaker 2: Like if that's not like an old school comic name,
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. But Woods, they looked
Speaker 2: exactly like to do. It was like uncanny, and you
Speaker 2: know it. Uh, Parker was a LAPD chief when this
Speaker 2: went down. And Parker, for all of his kind of
Speaker 2: for all the good things we can say about him,
Speaker 2: he really really mismanaged the aftermath of this situation. And
Speaker 2: then it's interesting how, you know, despite the I'm the
Speaker 2: first one to suggest that it's ridiculous, and people talk
Speaker 2: about how, oh, in the pre Kennedy assassination era that
Speaker 2: we lived in simple times or something like America was
Speaker 2: totally fucking flure. There were no simple times, especially when
Speaker 2: you're talking about America, which is like literally born out
Speaker 2: of like race war, Like that's ridiculous. However, there was
Speaker 2: a weird randomness to violence and particularly homicide that very
Speaker 2: suddenly jumped off and endured in absolute earnest for about
Speaker 2: thirty five years, and then very very suddenly stopped. I
Speaker 2: kind of think of like the last incident of that
Speaker 2: cycle in terms of perception and media narrative as Columbine okay,
Speaker 2: and like it just like dropped off suddenly, like nobody
Speaker 2: can explain it, you know, like the freakonomics types that
Speaker 2: book's kind of fallen off would thankfully because it it's
Speaker 2: an idiotic book. But the refrain of the kinds of
Speaker 2: lefty progressives was, oh well, Roe v. Wade meant that,
Speaker 2: you know, unwanted children weren't born, so all these kinds
Speaker 2: of social pathologies that that would have afflicted this this
Speaker 2: population that didn't exist. You know, we're absent. So you
Speaker 2: know that that's why. That doesn't explain why, and it's
Speaker 2: not you know, there there were many population booms to
Speaker 2: immigration and only to other things, particularly glocalized. And this
Speaker 2: hasn't like duplicated, like it doesn't make any sense. It's
Speaker 2: it's I mean, I have my own thoughts on why
Speaker 2: these kinds of things happened that, but that's probably you know,
Speaker 2: mostly probably dismissed it as overly metaphysical because it may
Speaker 2: like the Onion Field case, it very much like like
Speaker 2: even more so than the Kidy Genevi's incident, which is
Speaker 2: which has kind of been like mythologized and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of cap around what actually happened there. You know,
Speaker 2: that was that poor woman who was assaulted and like
Speaker 2: stabbed to death in front of our neighbors, and nobody
Speaker 2: did anything and nobody called it in. I mean, granted
Speaker 2: that was particularly awful because she was truly like a
Speaker 2: defenseless female, But the Onion Field situations ned more brazen
Speaker 2: because like these guys they just like murdered a cop
Speaker 2: and like the sub Keebles didn't do like that. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's the public enemy's era, Like some decades before guys
Speaker 2: would like shoot it out with the police, but it's
Speaker 2: like straight up in cold blood like murdering a cop,
Speaker 2: like shooting him in the face when you didn't have
Speaker 2: to like that.
Speaker 1: That really, like, you know, I grew up with a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of guys who went NYPD, and when
Speaker 1: you talk to them about people who kill cops, they say,
Speaker 1: the reason they take it more seriously is because if
Speaker 1: they're willing to kill a cop, they're willing to kill anyone.
Speaker 2: And Powell was a really creepy guy, like he his rep.
Speaker 2: He was just like really real sad sack, kind of
Speaker 2: loser hood guy who went by Jimmy Youngblood. He had
Speaker 2: like forty names. I think it's his burname with Jimmy
Speaker 2: Lee Smith, but he went by Jimmy Youngblood. Jimmy Youngblood.
Speaker 2: He was a heroin addict and he'd been spending basically
Speaker 2: his entire old life in prison, but it was for bullshit,
Speaker 2: you know, like stealing radios and like breaking into cars
Speaker 2: and like robbing. People said he could get dope, you know,
Speaker 2: and Powell really kind of like roped them into this
Speaker 2: like psycho stuff, you know. And that's not just a
Speaker 2: that's not just the cop out at trial. Those dynamic
Speaker 2: there really are dynamics like that. There's another thing as
Speaker 2: like a partnership of equals between rappies who do bizarre
Speaker 2: violent crimes. It's always and Powell too. He he didn't
Speaker 2: have a traditional criminal background, Like he was raised in
Speaker 2: some crummy suburb of Detroit. His father was a musician,
Speaker 2: this itinerant musician, and they never had any money. But
Speaker 2: Powell ran away from the home when he was fourteen
Speaker 2: or fifteen, and he took up with this kind of fake,
Speaker 2: a tinerant priest who molested him, totally screwed him up.
Speaker 2: So after that, Powell would like he periodically decided he
Speaker 2: was gay, even though like by the time he was arrested,
Speaker 2: he had like a wife who was pregnant with his kid.
Speaker 2: But then Powell goes to prison. First it was a
Speaker 2: death row, and then he got manumitted, you know when
Speaker 2: when the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, you know,
Speaker 2: and he got in in typo California fashion. There was
Speaker 2: a couple of retrials, but he ended up serving a
Speaker 2: life without parole. Okay, he had a couple of parole
Speaker 2: hearings decades on, but I mean there was no chance
Speaker 2: he was gonna get a conditional release. But when he
Speaker 2: was behind the wall, he decided he was like full
Speaker 2: on gay, and he started like writing for like gay
Speaker 2: rights publications and stuff. It was like an early example
Speaker 2: of like the gay movement having horrible optics because in
Speaker 2: one of their rags that I guess was pretty widely
Speaker 2: circulated in the West Coast in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 2: it's like, why do you have this like cop killer
Speaker 2: like drawing little cartoons and writing for you so then
Speaker 2: you know something like pulled that stuff. But you know,
Speaker 2: just like a bizarre guy. And he when he when
Speaker 2: he committed this murder, like apparently as a young guy,
Speaker 2: like he did a bunch of he did a bunch
Speaker 2: of felony stints for armed robbery because his thing was
Speaker 2: like robbing liquor stores and grocery stores. Like he didn't
Speaker 2: have a dope have or anything. He was like doing
Speaker 2: this stuff. And he'd apparently had brain surgery that's it's
Speaker 2: now believed was botched, and like he it basically like
Speaker 2: fried his his impulse control. And I think today with
Speaker 2: you know, modern imaging equipment and stuff, it would probably
Speaker 2: be clear that this guy's brain was a wreck, like
Speaker 2: his physical brain, because his criminal career doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: And also just like the sexual stuff, like doesn't really
Speaker 2: track and but he he Uh, Jimmy young Blood was
Speaker 2: on was on parole and he was in this program
Speaker 2: before method on was widely prescribed and before stuff like
Speaker 2: sub attacks. There's this really strange compound that that apparently
Speaker 2: had really deleterious effects on internal organ and things that
Speaker 2: they were trying to give to heroin addicts because it
Speaker 2: was kind of like the shot the alcoholics, but it
Speaker 2: didn't really work. But young Blood was conditionally paroled and
Speaker 2: he was he was able to go to this medical
Speaker 2: center for parole league or they shoot him up with
Speaker 2: this with this compound and that supposedly would would hear
Speaker 2: him of his of his habit. And he ran across
Speaker 2: Powell because Powell, along other bizarre things like Powell was
Speaker 2: married to a white woman and his whole family was white,
Speaker 2: but Powell basically exclusively hung around black folks, which is weird.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's weird today, it was really weird in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty. But that's how young Blood ran into him.
Speaker 2: And uh, he was pulling a heist with this degenerate
Speaker 2: alcohol like like a hobo who was a part time
Speaker 2: like shoe shine man and Powell somehow I mean presuma.
Speaker 2: It was not really clear, but presumably it was because
Speaker 2: young Blood needed money for dope that he got. He
Speaker 2: got sucked into this nonsense of like pulling these like
Speaker 2: Hindsted heights, like liquor stores and stuff or what amounts
Speaker 2: to chump change. So their pads crossed with these cops
Speaker 2: because one night, uh paula Youngblood, we cruising uh Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: like presumably they were casing, you know, a place to rob,
Speaker 2: you know, and they had this They had this ancient
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six Ford coop, you know, like an old
Speaker 2: gangster movies, you know, like it's it's got that like
Speaker 2: sloped trunk and stuff, you know, if you know what
Speaker 2: old Fords look like. And these two police, uh Ian
Speaker 2: Campbell and Carl Hedinger. Campbell was the guy woended up
Speaker 2: getting blasted and murdered, and you know, both young guys. Campbell,
Speaker 2: if I memory series, was a Korean war vet, and
Speaker 2: he was the older man. He was a Scottish type
Speaker 2: guy like he played he literally played bagpipes, you know,
Speaker 2: like a real heroic guy, you know, and and heading
Speaker 2: Gerr obviously looked up to him. But they were they
Speaker 2: were assigned to this March ninth, sixty three. They were
Speaker 2: assigned to his duty and you know, in playing clothes
Speaker 2: like you know, basically aggressive policing of the old type,
Speaker 2: you know, and before surveillance tech, like you basically just
Speaker 2: like look out for you know, possible possible subjects like
Speaker 2: you know, like in like on the make or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know. So they pulled over young Blood and Powell,
Speaker 2: and Powell just suddenly like drew down on him. You
Speaker 2: got the jump on him on Campbell and this is
Speaker 2: key head Injurer. Uh had drawn his service revolver and
Speaker 2: he refused to give it up until Campbell said he's
Speaker 2: got a gun on me, meaning Powell, you know, give
Speaker 2: up your weapon. And l EPD doctrine at that time
Speaker 2: was that if somebody gets to drop on you, give
Speaker 2: up your weapon, because nobody's going to kill a cop
Speaker 2: for no reason, you know, like that was the thinking.
Speaker 2: So then uh, Powell, he gets in the front seat,
Speaker 2: he orders Campbell to drive his car. Young Blood he
Speaker 2: gets in the back with Headinger, and I think young
Speaker 2: Blood had a sowd off shotgun, you know. So then
Speaker 2: Powell was just like drive, you know, and Campbell's like
Speaker 2: where are we going? And Powell's like, just drive, you know.
Speaker 2: He's like, I'm not gonna hurt you guys, but you
Speaker 2: just got to drive. We got to get out of
Speaker 2: the city. So he drives them all the way to
Speaker 2: Baker's Field and he stops. Finally, he orders Campbell to stop,
Speaker 2: literally in this onion field. And Headinger said that like,
Speaker 2: even before they stop, he's like it was pitch play.
Speaker 2: He couldn't see anything, but he's like the overwhelming odor
Speaker 2: of onions. He's like it was making everybody's eyes tear up.
Speaker 2: You think it was surreal. So they stop, Powell orders
Speaker 2: everybody out, and then, according to both young Blood and Headinger,
Speaker 2: Pawell look Campbell in the face and he says, are
Speaker 2: you familiar with the Lindenberg Law. It's not clear what
Speaker 2: he meant by that, Like, presumably he was referring to
Speaker 2: the federal kidnapping statue, which kind of colopially, I guess
Speaker 2: would have been the Lindenberg Law. And that was a
Speaker 2: big deal because after Lindberg Baby, that's another horrible case.
Speaker 2: After the after Lindberg's son, infant son was killed by
Speaker 2: ransom kidnappers, you know, a federal statute was passed that
Speaker 2: you know, imposed there was no there was no open
Speaker 2: ended federal death penalty, but kidnapping for ransdom became a
Speaker 2: death penalty offense after that. So presumably in like the
Speaker 2: warped and like mangled mind of Powell, his notion was,
Speaker 2: I don't want to waste you, but I have to
Speaker 2: now because I kidnapped you, which makes zero sense. Then
Speaker 2: he doesn't blast him in the face. He like, I
Speaker 2: think he had like a twenty five automatic. He just
Speaker 2: like emptied the magazine into him.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: Headinger related he heard somebody screaming, and He's like, at
Speaker 2: first out it was Campbell. Then I realized it was
Speaker 2: young Blood. Like young Blood just like freaked out and
Speaker 2: presumab would save it head Inur's life because young Blood
Speaker 2: was like panic panicking, and he didn't blast him. So
Speaker 2: Hedinger ran for literally four miles and there was some kid,
Speaker 2: some uh, some black kid who was getting an early start,
Speaker 2: like some farm hand, you know, like three in the morning,
Speaker 2: you know, had and told him what happened, and then
Speaker 2: you know, he he called for help and everything. But
Speaker 2: the way that dealt with Headinger, Parker forced him to
Speaker 2: address like police academy classes. He forced into a dress
Speaker 2: like squad rooms full of street officers, like basically reliving
Speaker 2: what had happened to him and then having the watch
Speaker 2: commander say, see, this is why you never give up
Speaker 2: your weapon. You'll end up like him, I mean, like
Speaker 2: basically torturing the guy, you know, under auspices. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think Parker was that of too, so I think
Speaker 2: he didn't realize what was wrong with this, and then
Speaker 2: he put him on coaching duty as his personal driver
Speaker 2: and headingers prodective. We started losing his mind, you know,
Speaker 2: and he didn't know what it handlecks. On the one hand,
Speaker 2: everybody like pitied him. On the other hand, they treated
Speaker 2: him with this kind of like haughty contempt, like he
Speaker 2: was some kind of pussy or something, and he gave
Speaker 2: him a very sad end. He ended up getting dismissed
Speaker 2: from the police department because he was he was doing
Speaker 2: bizarre things, including like shoplifting worthless items, and it was
Speaker 2: obvious that and he said, like the guy like blew
Speaker 2: a gasket, I mean obviously not to be flippant or
Speaker 2: mean about it. You know. He ended up up ended
Speaker 2: up working as a gardener and then like drinking himself
Speaker 2: to death in middle age. Like in the nineties. You know,
Speaker 2: this is like a horrible situation, but that one of
Speaker 2: the one of the this maybe huge impact on the
Speaker 2: public consciouness, but particularly police and the cultural policing. It
Speaker 2: was already going in kind of a strange direction anyway, okay,
Speaker 2: And that that's really what that's really kind of what
Speaker 2: put over the idea of like paramilitarized policing, you know,
Speaker 2: and that stuff like the Watts riots like solidified it.
Speaker 2: You know, like for context. During Watts there there was
Speaker 2: like snipers taking up positions to like blast cops. You know.
Speaker 2: It was like urban combat, you know. And Wallah makes
Speaker 2: a big deal in the Choir Boys. By the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: a lot of police departments, including a p D, had
Speaker 2: adopted the commander rank. And he thought that this was
Speaker 2: really bad, you know. And it's the subjects of the
Speaker 2: Choir Boys. It opens up in Vietnam and two of
Speaker 2: the two of the cops, two of the choir Boys,
Speaker 2: they're they have this terrifying experience for their hiding from
Speaker 2: the North Vietnamese Army in a cave like outside of Kusan.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The one man is a panic attack and and then
Speaker 2: years later, you know, like five years later, when he's
Speaker 2: on duty with UH with L A p D. You know,
Speaker 2: he has a flashback and he and and there's a
Speaker 2: horrible outcome because he ends up blasting this this unarmed
Speaker 2: civilian and ruining his life. But uh, all the choir
Speaker 2: boys who are the subject of the book, they're all
Speaker 2: these kind of like these kind of like prestige characters
Speaker 2: of different archetypes that were on l A p D
Speaker 2: at the time. But all of them except got of
Speaker 2: the old head he's around fifty, who's still a beat
Speaker 2: cop just because that's where he's comfortable. They're all Vietnam vets,
Speaker 2: and they're all unhinged. They've all got like a head
Speaker 2: full of war and they are of LAPD. They act
Speaker 2: that we sought out guys who had experienced and non
Speaker 2: that wasn't accidental. Some of that went on here too.
Speaker 2: I'm not even saying that was misguided on his own terrors,
Speaker 2: but the way I questioned some of the motives for that,
Speaker 2: Like John Burge, you know, who was a fucking menace
Speaker 2: like here. You know, Berg tortured a bunch of confessions
Speaker 2: out of people like and a lot of these guys
Speaker 2: like hadn't done anything. But Burge. Burge was an MP
Speaker 2: and NOM, but he was involved in all kinds of
Speaker 2: strange stuff and he had a bronze star with the
Speaker 2: valor device. He'd been in the action. But he also
Speaker 2: a lot of his duty involved enhanced interrogation of Viet
Speaker 2: Cong suspects. You know. So this man had a skill
Speaker 2: set that for the nineteen seventies police department, it was
Speaker 2: very much in demand. You know. And while I've always
Speaker 2: makes the point in the Choir Boys especially, but in
Speaker 2: a lot of his other stuff, you know, he's like
Speaker 2: a police department's basically a political administration. He's like, you
Speaker 2: have it. It has to be visible because the voters want.
Speaker 2: The voters want to be able to call somebody if
Speaker 2: not to be crassed, like their kids walking to school
Speaker 2: and he runs about some guy jaking off in the
Speaker 2: bushes or something. Okay, they want to believe it's some
Speaker 2: kind of like formal recourse for that. But like the
Speaker 2: police can't solve sociological problems, like the police can't solve
Speaker 2: like a race war. The police can't make people like
Speaker 2: not use drugs, like this isn't something, this isn't like
Speaker 2: these aren't criminal matters. I mean, they can become that way.
Speaker 2: But it's like Wahabbah's all points. So in the choir boys, basically,
Speaker 2: these guys have an impossible job and some of them
Speaker 2: are just like goons who want their name to ring
Speaker 2: out and they just like to fuck people up. Like
Speaker 2: some of them are like like nineteen sixties idealist boomer
Speaker 2: types who think that like, oh, well, you know, if
Speaker 2: you can if you can bring some kind of diplomacy
Speaker 2: and understanding, you know, the officer civilian interaction, and then
Speaker 2: we can have like a more peaceable community. But it's
Speaker 2: like that's not the police's job either, you know. So
Speaker 2: the recurring motif and wlahah blah stuff is like cops
Speaker 2: and commit suicide because they just become like they just
Speaker 2: like crash the fuck out, and especially them, that's the
Speaker 2: very real thing, you know, and it's some walla blah
Speaker 2: makes the point. You know, in the sixties or seventies
Speaker 2: when all this crazy stuff was happening, even if you
Speaker 2: survived twenty years as like a beat cop, like you
Speaker 2: don't get shot, you don't get like maimed, you know,
Speaker 2: you get like your full pension. He's like, oh, be fine.
Speaker 2: Now I'm like retired, but I'm like forty one years old,
Speaker 2: Like what I'm gonna do is with my life, And
Speaker 2: a lot of these guys were divorced by then. They
Speaker 2: got a drinking problem. It's like something like sit around
Speaker 2: my house and like drink a lot, Like how many
Speaker 2: fishing trips can you possibly take? Like it's not it's not.
Speaker 2: Being like a big city cop is not a good
Speaker 2: way to go through life, you know, and like I'm not,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm like trashing guys whose life shook out
Speaker 2: that way. Like there's a lot of polices who like
Speaker 2: follow my content and stuff and that's great, but you know,
Speaker 2: while I'm like he basically, uh, there's always a stock
Speaker 2: character in his novels or something like older guy who
Speaker 2: like helps rookies understand I used to survive like in
Speaker 2: the deep hood and how you can like make it
Speaker 2: to twenty years. But then these guys like well, like
Speaker 2: you know, three months after they retire, everybody gets a
Speaker 2: word like blew their fucking brains out. And while boy
Speaker 2: he kind of would hint around it because he, you know,
Speaker 2: was like a reserved guy, but you know, he said,
Speaker 2: there's a reason why like I left the police force
Speaker 2: immediately when I started making money from writings. He's like,
Speaker 2: I was gonna end up like one of those guys,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's that's pretty that's pretty that's pretty
Speaker 2: bleak man. But uh, the what significant too is is
Speaker 2: what like a microcosm it is of of then versus now,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's one of one of the reasons
Speaker 2: for I mean, obviously the these these these horrible people
Speaker 2: in government and and these in geo radicals and and
Speaker 2: others he shall not be named, you know that they
Speaker 2: obviously sees on stuff like like like the George Floyd situation,
Speaker 2: you know, as a kind of detonation strategy. But the
Speaker 2: reason why they're able to do that is because policing
Speaker 2: as it's been conceptualized really from the mid twentieth century onward,
Speaker 2: like that's that's that's dead, like that's obsolescent, you know,
Speaker 2: like it doesn't you know, if we've said what Alma
Speaker 2: said about it being basically a political function and a
Speaker 2: kind of like sociological theater, like people don't respond to
Speaker 2: it that way anymore. And also like do you like
Speaker 2: what do your body camps changes everything because like what
Speaker 2: cops do is such that like I'm not I'm not
Speaker 2: talking about like Navary type police, but like Chicago PD,
Speaker 2: you're like l EPD, You're like NYPD. Like the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff these guys do, you know, Like basically, uh,
Speaker 2: it basically evolves like breaking down like street dudes who
Speaker 2: otherwise would be cavalier in the way that they apply violence.
Speaker 2: And you can't have it it because you know, as
Speaker 2: a sovereign government, local or otherwise can't allow that and
Speaker 2: still retain credibility. But also there's got to be an
Speaker 2: understanding that if you transgress certain parameters, like you're gonna
Speaker 2: get broken down and you can't. That doesn't work in
Speaker 2: the air of the Panopticon. But it's also people just
Speaker 2: kind of move differently, like the whole One of the
Speaker 2: one of the recurring motifs, especially in the Choir Boys,
Speaker 2: is like when these cops answer calls, like in the
Speaker 2: deep Hood, it's like you're all by yourself. And even
Speaker 2: and until the eighties, squad cars were called cold radio
Speaker 2: cars because cops didn't even have a radio on their person.
Speaker 2: So basically, like you go through a door if you're
Speaker 2: partnered with somebody, and police armers deployed how they deployed
Speaker 2: like varied by region and by department. But at best
Speaker 2: you're gonna have like one guy with you and the
Speaker 2: most firepower you're gonna have as a twelve gage, which
Speaker 2: is a great weapon, don't get me wrong, But that
Speaker 2: doesn't if you're if there's RNA men five D. But
Speaker 2: like that, that doesn't do anything, you know. So while
Speaker 2: I'm talking about how scary it was to like have
Speaker 2: to like breach doors by yourself, you know, but now
Speaker 2: I mean not only the cops have body cams and
Speaker 2: most police farmers it's like literally like a live feed
Speaker 2: like back to where they're deployed from. You know, they're
Speaker 2: in constant content with a radio on their person, like
Speaker 2: deployment patterns of such of a total situational awareness. But
Speaker 2: also like things are just like different, like you wouldn't
Speaker 2: there's not the same potential for lawlessness. It's like when
Speaker 2: lawlessness does jump up, it's very punctuated and it's very
Speaker 2: scaled and it's very bad. But there'd never be a
Speaker 2: situation like the Bronx was back in the eighties, or
Speaker 2: like Wrigley Bill was in the early eighties, when it
Speaker 2: was like a shithole where there's just kind of like
Speaker 2: guys moving around and not like praying on random people,
Speaker 2: you know, because they want money you're there or something
Speaker 2: like that doesn't happen anymore, you know, not not because
Speaker 2: not not because people have become less simian or something,
Speaker 2: but it that's just not how you move anymore. If
Speaker 2: if you're if you if you're on the make like that,
Speaker 2: you know so and also too, like it like people
Speaker 2: people are hip to the fact they're like always on camera,
Speaker 2: you know, like if you're gonna do I mean, don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong, Like horrible stuff does still happen, and
Speaker 2: there's like a way you can do it where you're
Speaker 2: you're out of sight of the electric eye. But it's
Speaker 2: it's it's different and people's living patterns too, Like you
Speaker 2: don't have you don't have situations anymore where people where
Speaker 2: we've got like thousands and thousands of people are kind
Speaker 2: of like trapped in some urban environment that's failing and
Speaker 2: like even like the deep hood that's its own thing,
Speaker 2: but it's different and it's kind of like bandit country,
Speaker 2: you know. It's the people there aren't like actively engaging
Speaker 2: with the police and wanting the police to kind of
Speaker 2: help quash these anti social instincts that you know, periodically
Speaker 2: flare up and stuff. So I maintain that like modern
Speaker 2: policing is dying and you and in the traditional sense,
Speaker 2: the traditionally understood sense of what the job entailed. It's
Speaker 2: not like illegal for cops to move that way. So
Speaker 2: I mean, this isn't you know, And I know that
Speaker 2: especially a lot of older folks and I'm not transging
Speaker 2: older folks. I am one. They have this idea like, well,
Speaker 2: we just need to take the gloves off and quote
Speaker 2: what cops do their job. Like they don't understand what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. Like even if like you told cops
Speaker 2: like look you can you can crack heads and like
Speaker 2: break people the fuck down, like it's nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't resolve the problem. And the public wouldn't like that,
Speaker 2: I don't think, Like that wouldn't make them the wouldn't
Speaker 2: make bougies feel safe. That's not what they want. They
Speaker 2: don't want the police to go away. They're full of
Speaker 2: shit when they claim that on Facebook or whatever. But
Speaker 2: what I just describe like isn't what they want. But
Speaker 2: also I get you know it, it uh I don't
Speaker 2: think that, uh I, I don't. I don't think the
Speaker 2: will would be there anyway because it's too open ended,
Speaker 2: if that makes any sense. And uh I think too.
Speaker 2: You know, this is not just for political reasons. But
Speaker 2: this has been in the running for a minute. And
Speaker 2: you know, guys like Tellus shit I used to write
Speaker 2: about this in the nineties and he he and those
Speaker 2: like him got something's wrong, but they got something's right.
Speaker 2: And the privatization of armed force as well as protective services,
Speaker 2: that's very much like a real thing, and that's increasingly
Speaker 2: gonna become the face of policing and and and in
Speaker 2: in fifty years. I don't think you're gonna have a
Speaker 2: regular police department. Like, yeah, obviously, if you go you
Speaker 2: go kill your neighbor, you know, somebody is going to
Speaker 2: show up, somebody there was somebody who are gonna be
Speaker 2: heavily armed. They're gonna like take you into custody and
Speaker 2: pull you before we judge. But it's not gonna be
Speaker 2: We have guys in these like blue and white cars
Speaker 2: driving around like looking for people who are fucking up
Speaker 2: or something like. That's done. That's not gonna happen anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, and even even here where things are like
Speaker 2: a lot more draconian and we're kind of like in
Speaker 2: a time warp here, like police are like way way
Speaker 2: less like aggressive in terms of what kind of conduct
Speaker 2: though the the'll for bracelets on you for you know,
Speaker 2: and it's not that that's not just uh and then
Speaker 2: that's enduring even now that like you've got we've got
Speaker 2: like a very like law and order president denewable office.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not as the pendulum swinging back or
Speaker 2: something like. It's like sociologically, the things have become such
Speaker 2: that what we're describing is is no longer viable and
Speaker 2: you know, I uh, it's it should it should seem
Speaker 2: strange to people anyway, like whether you live in the
Speaker 2: city or the country. This idea of we're gonna hire
Speaker 2: a bunch of young military age meals who aren't from
Speaker 2: your community, who you have no idea who these guys are.
Speaker 2: They're going to be heavily armed and just kind of
Speaker 2: like tell you to do things and lay the hammer
Speaker 2: down on people when they decided crimes underway. That's like
Speaker 2: really really really invasive, you know, And there's conditions where
Speaker 2: you've got to sacrifice certain freedom of movement and liberty
Speaker 2: because otherwise there can't be public order. And that's absolutely
Speaker 2: the way things were in the mid twentieth century. Things
Speaker 2: aren't like that anymore, you know. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that underlies the fact that, like the gun control lobby,
Speaker 2: you finally gave up, Like it's not just because the
Speaker 2: issue became like a big loser politically, like that put
Speaker 2: the mistakes, the cause or the effect, Like that issue
Speaker 2: became a loser because frankly, if you don't want aggressive policing,
Speaker 2: you you basically have to accept the fact that people
Speaker 2: that American is going to be armed to the teeth,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's really interesting, very abruptly, everybody just
Speaker 2: kind of capitulated on that issue. You know, I realized
Speaker 2: it's still token efforts and bullshit, you know, and meaningless
Speaker 2: derivations you know, like oh, this is an assault weapons,
Speaker 2: so it's bad and it's banned, even though assault weapons
Speaker 2: don't exist, or there's you know, ways locally like here
Speaker 2: you can sort of like bury people under paperwork to
Speaker 2: deprive them of their Second Amendment rights in a defecto
Speaker 2: kind of way, while still you know, complying with the
Speaker 2: litter of the law. But you know, the circumstances I'm
Speaker 2: always describing about deliberate communities, you know, quitting the the
Speaker 2: social engineering regime, which is already happening. But in those
Speaker 2: liberate communities, you're not gonna have just like random guys
Speaker 2: from other places coming in to police them. People aren't
Speaker 2: gonna tolerate that anymore, you know, Like it's not gonna
Speaker 2: tolerate Like I'm like random white guys doing that, Like,
Speaker 2: we're not gonna tolerate some like random fucking Hindu guys
Speaker 2: who watched too much TV deciding they're gonna calle policas
Speaker 2: Like that's over with, you know, gonna be places.
Speaker 1: I think, I think people. I think people instinctively, even
Speaker 1: like the big law and order boomers and everything like that,
Speaker 1: know that if you send somebody into police, like if
Speaker 1: you're sending you know, a bunch of suburban white guys
Speaker 1: into the hood in the in the inner city, that's
Speaker 1: just an invading army. And even if people can't even
Speaker 1: if people can't articulate that, they instinctively know it and
Speaker 1: they're reacting to it.
Speaker 2: And it's a terrible idea. And I mean, no, make
Speaker 2: no mistake like I'm more sympathetic to nineteen eighties LAPD
Speaker 2: than a lot of people. And whether in the movie Colors,
Speaker 2: that's a really great movie. It's just cool, but it's
Speaker 2: also you know, like when it opens up and it's
Speaker 2: Operation Hammer, where Gates is basically like like Flying Crash,
Speaker 2: they're just like they're throwing the brace Thatt's on like
Speaker 2: any like any military age male, like Flying Gang Colors,
Speaker 2: because Gates's notion is like, let's arrest like all these motherfuckers.
Speaker 2: And even if they bond out, you know, in thirty
Speaker 2: six hours when they get in front of a judge
Speaker 2: or even if like you know, they get cut loose
Speaker 2: without even a bonding set, He's like, now we know.
Speaker 2: Now we've got an idea like the forest levels of
Speaker 2: these guys and what they're set is, and like what
Speaker 2: what territory they claim, you know, so we can build
Speaker 2: like a conceptual picture of like what op for is
Speaker 2: and uh, like it really was like a war, you know,
Speaker 2: and the movie gets into that, you know, like especially
Speaker 2: where I think, uh, they don't other than the crypts
Speaker 2: in the Blood is like they use euphemism as for
Speaker 2: the other gangs, but they're but there's like the there's
Speaker 2: like the mostly Spanish gang but they're supposed to be
Speaker 2: eighteenth Street and like they assault the crypts and uh
Speaker 2: like the one dude, the one who's gotta mac ten
Speaker 2: and then Don Hiedl he's got an a k and
Speaker 2: they're like throwing the throwing like frags at each other.
Speaker 2: Like it's not as like I was watching this movie
Speaker 2: with this chick. I was watching them with this chick.
Speaker 2: I know, it was like a lot younger than me,
Speaker 2: and she was like laughing. I'm like, no, you don't understand,
Speaker 2: like shit was like that, and like that's not just
Speaker 2: like cartoons stuff, you know. And uh so, I mean,
Speaker 2: I I I don't think Gates was was a great guy,
Speaker 2: but I understand what is I understand is his tad
Speaker 2: orientation and it wasn't just crazy or and he wasn't
Speaker 2: just being some tyrant or something. But I mean, that's
Speaker 2: that's not the way things that's not the way things
Speaker 2: are anymore. And you know, also, I like nine to
Speaker 2: eleven change things in ways that I don't think in
Speaker 2: ways they're in ways they're severe but also somewhat subtle
Speaker 2: man and like I you know, basically there's certain sorts
Speaker 2: of conduct that take the individuals so engaged out of
Speaker 2: consideration as a criminal actor and it becomes okay to
Speaker 2: blast them. And this is what this is a fact.
Speaker 2: You know. So this idea that well, you know, the
Speaker 2: Norman idea, like well we need the police because like
Speaker 2: what about terrorism or what about like may I shooters.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's not really a police problem. Like that
Speaker 2: means you need people to deploy to kill them, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, that's that's that's not to say
Speaker 2: you post up the army of the National Guard to
Speaker 2: patrol the streets, but that means that the response to
Speaker 2: those kinds of crises are not We're going to send
Speaker 2: a police department to frisk and arrest people. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a totally different mission orientation. And increasingly that kind
Speaker 2: of thing is going to be privatized. It's like, if
Speaker 2: the idea is, which the idea should be for anyone
Speaker 2: who's serious about physical security of that store, is to
Speaker 2: preempt violence before it happens, well, I mean you you
Speaker 2: basically it's like Derek Prince talked about after the attempt
Speaker 2: on Trump's life on one of those podcasts. He's like
Speaker 2: you don't really want a police sensibility if you're trying
Speaker 2: to protect the president or presidential candidate. You know you're
Speaker 2: not You're not looking for poth suspicious people. You're not
Speaker 2: scanting the crowd for a guy who's maybe strapped. You know,
Speaker 2: you're looking for threats. And when you identify those threats,
Speaker 2: you you you neutralize them. And yeah, like sometimes you're
Speaker 2: wrong and that's bad, But I mean that that's the
Speaker 2: the liabilities, moral and material that attend any any any
Speaker 2: profession that that you know deals with the violent its currency.
Speaker 2: But you know that the Princess is an interesting guy
Speaker 2: and he he, he understands this better than most people,
Speaker 2: despite the facts his background is military, not police. But
Speaker 2: I think that actually is one of the things to
Speaker 2: which is insight, oh is because it's hard to see
Speaker 2: the parameters of of changing phenomena, particularly sociological or or
Speaker 2: or or political phenomenon like from within an institution, you know,
Speaker 2: and if you're if you even if you're on the
Speaker 2: younger side, if you'l like a cop who's been doing
Speaker 2: this for a decade or longer, like like basically you're
Speaker 2: in you're in your entire conceptual horizon, you know, orbits
Speaker 2: around kind of like police science and and the kind
Speaker 2: of strictures that uh, you know supposedly are the are
Speaker 2: the kind of core tenets of of policing, when when
Speaker 2: that's that's pretty much dead in the water. And I
Speaker 2: mean especially these days too, you know. I Uh, one
Speaker 2: of the I lament a lot the death of the
Speaker 2: public intellectual like as a as a type of person,
Speaker 2: because I think they played an essential role. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons things have been done down so
Speaker 2: much unto the Cold War is it's hard to determine
Speaker 2: this is like a causal Varia Bullard or just like
Speaker 2: a secondary effect. Maybe it's both. But you know, there's
Speaker 2: this really great documentary called The Futurists, and uh it
Speaker 2: came out in the seventies, like around the time. It
Speaker 2: very much like was riffing on Alvin Toffler, the guy
Speaker 2: who wrote Future Shock, which is a really good book.
Speaker 2: But you know, this is the only guy I've heard
Speaker 2: talk about the fact that you know, these days, if
Speaker 2: if you want to hurt people, or if you want
Speaker 2: to or if you want to assassinate a public official
Speaker 2: or a or a high value target, you don't even
Speaker 2: need to put eyes on them and and and close
Speaker 2: physical distance and blast them. I mean you could, you
Speaker 2: could program drones to swarm them like that would take
Speaker 2: some planning and some money. But there's there's guys who
Speaker 2: have never even had a smartphone, like in the tribaler
Speaker 2: is a Pakistan, like they they learn how to program drones.
Speaker 2: It's not like you need to be some It's not
Speaker 2: you need to be some like under seventeen like boy
Speaker 2: genius to do it. You know, they're they're very they're
Speaker 2: they're very utile in bail field situations for that reason,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh so this idea too that like
Speaker 2: well unless we have like physical eyes on the ground
Speaker 2: doing like patrols like we we we can't control a
Speaker 2: we can't not control. We can't we can't provide security
Speaker 2: for you know, for a physical space like this nonsense,
Speaker 2: Like you don't need to do that anymore. In fact,
Speaker 2: that might not even help. But what are you gonna
Speaker 2: hypothetically in God forbid and that God doesn't happen. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's say let's say the president or you know, somebody
Speaker 2: else wasn't like Trump situation and like it doesn't like
Speaker 2: drones like converge on them like a series I was
Speaker 2: gonna do we start blasting the drones. They're if they're
Speaker 2: kind of cozy, drones are all gonna die and then
Speaker 2: blow up, you know, I mean, like what what are
Speaker 2: you gonna do about them? It's such that there is
Speaker 2: a countermeasure. I mean, yeah, you do any you do
Speaker 2: still need eyes on the operational area, like ly looked
Speaker 2: like spotting where somebody controlling those drones. But that guy
Speaker 2: could be fourteen klometer away. Okay, you know things like that,
Speaker 2: you know, and I realized that like people pete, the
Speaker 2: rebuttal is gonna be like like subs watch and it's
Speaker 2: gonna be like, well, that's not what like beat cops do.
Speaker 2: It's like no, But that comes back to what I
Speaker 2: said before. A lot of this stuff is is becoming
Speaker 2: private eyes and a lot of it, you know, there's
Speaker 2: not really a civic culture that interfaces with the bureaugrac anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, like in a lot of ways that's positive
Speaker 2: because stuff like we're doing, we're building genuine community and
Speaker 2: a deliberate way. But I I don't want to fuck
Speaker 2: with the police, Like if somebody, if somebody tried to
Speaker 2: hurt me or my dad and my home. I defend myself,
Speaker 2: and God forbid, if somebody died, like somebody attagging me,
Speaker 2: obviously i'd call it in so I didnt get charged
Speaker 2: with murder. But beyond that, like if somebody, if somebody
Speaker 2: if like if I was at Starbucks and I find
Speaker 2: I discover somebody stole my wallet, I'm not gonna call
Speaker 2: it police. They're not going to care, Like what are
Speaker 2: they gonna do? You know, this isn't nineteen eighty or
Speaker 2: something where it's like if you have a problem, oh,
Speaker 2: you call the police. Because there's kind of like this
Speaker 2: not particularly intimate or or or or or deep, but
Speaker 2: there is this kind of like basic moral consensus where
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, like all all you know, all non
Speaker 2: marginal people like call the police to resolve you know,
Speaker 2: these these kinds of slights to the person of their property,
Speaker 2: Like nobody thinks that way anymore, you know, so a
Speaker 2: lot of that's dead. And as far as like physical
Speaker 2: security and stuff, it's like, well, you know, you should
Speaker 2: be you should be thinking about self defense. You shouldn't
Speaker 2: be thinking like I'm gonna call the police protect me.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't'et me wrong. I realize there's you know,
Speaker 2: if you're like a single woman in like a big
Speaker 2: city or something like, I have no doubt that that
Speaker 2: can be like very scary, and you know, you need
Speaker 2: to be able to call people to help you and stuff,
Speaker 2: because you know, some people are vulnerable and that's a
Speaker 2: difficult question, you know, and there's gonna be there's gonna
Speaker 2: be gaps in in the protection that certain vulnerable people need.
Speaker 2: And that's not a good thing. But that's the way
Speaker 2: things always are. That doesn't somehow neck gate or defeat
Speaker 2: sociological trends that are driven by historical processes and move ons,
Speaker 2: you know, So that's important. What I will say is,
Speaker 2: I take it back, is not forgive me. One of
Speaker 2: the I should have said this when we were kind
Speaker 2: of breaking down Wandblas catalog. The New Centurions is like
Speaker 2: a good book. Yeah, it's like pro police stuff. And
Speaker 2: because he was he was like an LAPD sergeant when
Speaker 2: he wrote it, and so obviously he wasn't gonna trash
Speaker 2: the organization. But also, you know, like we talked about
Speaker 2: an early earlier episode, LAPD has always been kind of
Speaker 2: like uniquely inter based with media, Like I guarantee that
Speaker 2: La PD was way more involved in like the process
Speaker 2: A many officer was like writing something, whether it was
Speaker 2: like a TV or a film script or a novel.
Speaker 2: So I guarantee you he had like like administration guys
Speaker 2: like literally looking over his shoulder. But it does this.
Speaker 2: It basically it doesn't have a traditional plot. It's very
Speaker 2: episodic and there's three It follows these three young guys
Speaker 2: like through the police a kid, I mean, then like
Speaker 2: they hit the street, and like one of the guys
Speaker 2: names is Duran. He's basically like a he's like a
Speaker 2: Tejano guy, but he's he's like a white dude. He
Speaker 2: like doesn't identify with like Chicanos. He's not from East La.
Speaker 2: But because of like his appearance and his surname, like
Speaker 2: he gets deployed like East La and like a heart
Speaker 2: Basically I think around echo Park, I have to reread it.
Speaker 2: But he uh, that's probably the most like people criticised
Speaker 2: the book saying like, oh well, but he draws none
Speaker 2: of my characters in simple minded terms. I think that's
Speaker 2: the wrong way to look at it, because always do
Speaker 2: with Duran is that Duran's like he he gets like
Speaker 2: the Echo park Beat or whatever, and he's like, I'm
Speaker 2: not like these fucking people like their scumbaggs. But then
Speaker 2: he realizes, like on the street, like you are Mexican,
Speaker 2: like you are mister policeman. People think you're one of them.
Speaker 2: You know, it doesn't matter, and like as and it's
Speaker 2: interesting too because like his perspective obviously, and those the
Speaker 2: people he's charged with policing, Like as the Watchwrights jump off,
Speaker 2: you see, like what the Spanish folks are thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: because they're kind of like they're kind of like this
Speaker 2: third variable, you know. And then like one of the
Speaker 2: dudes is he's like this guy like funk guy college,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's like do something. So he becomes
Speaker 2: a cop, you know, and he's convinced he's like smarter
Speaker 2: than everybody and shit, and he kind of like looks
Speaker 2: down on his fellow officers. He's just like it's kind
Speaker 2: of like regular like middle class white dude. But then
Speaker 2: like he gets he gets assigned like the deep hood.
Speaker 2: It's like when watch jumps off, like he gets he's, uh,
Speaker 2: he's like under fire and stuff, and then he realizes,
Speaker 2: like uh, he gets like humbled by the whole experience,
Speaker 2: you know, like stuff like that. It's you know, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure some people, especially like younger guys and girls,
Speaker 2: who would think it was like corny, like the kind
Speaker 2: of you know, the kind of like nineteen sixties era
Speaker 2: kind of like bumper sticker patriotism. But it is like
Speaker 2: a it is kind of like a snapshot, and it's
Speaker 2: called the New Centurion. It's like the third guy who
Speaker 2: I think is supposed to be Wamba because he's just
Speaker 2: kind of like this like regular dude, who's who's you know,
Speaker 2: he wants to be a police officer and he doesn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of vices and stuff. But the guy who, uh,
Speaker 2: the guy who teaches him how to like be a
Speaker 2: street cop, ends up coming suicide. But that dude tells
Speaker 2: him like, we're the new Centurions because basically America is
Speaker 2: like the failing Roman Empire, you know, and and the
Speaker 2: only thing that stands between the barbarians, you know, and
Speaker 2: and what remains a civilization like are us. And that's
Speaker 2: that's kind of like as bleak and subversive as the
Speaker 2: book gets. But then like the character that drops that,
Speaker 2: like he blows his brains out and it turns out
Speaker 2: he thinks it's a big alcoholic. So I think that's
Speaker 2: like by dropping like we'll talk with the Albie. Oh no,
Speaker 2: that's a disturbed character. But that's interesting because it I, uh,
Speaker 2: one of the one of the vin yet say, like
Speaker 2: in the movie Cruising with al But you know, which
Speaker 2: is an underrated It's like the subject matter is gross
Speaker 2: and that puts a lot of people off. But I
Speaker 2: think it's kind of like an American Jallo picture. I
Speaker 2: really like it. But the the opening scene, there's these
Speaker 2: two cops and one of us played by Joe Spenell,
Speaker 2: and uh, they're driving around. I guess it's uh, I
Speaker 2: think it. I think they're actually in Alphabet City, but
Speaker 2: I think it's supposed to be the village and they
Speaker 2: go by and there's there's there's like these dudes like
Speaker 2: in leather and these guys, you know, these transsexual and
Speaker 2: stuff and spells. Just like he's like, what the hell
Speaker 2: is happening? You know, and it's like, uh, you get
Speaker 2: that sense like in the New Centurions, like especially like
Speaker 2: in the dan Umois where like the characters passed finally
Speaker 2: crossing to watch it's like, you know, I took this
Speaker 2: job because I wanted to like help vulnerable people or whatever,
Speaker 2: and like, I'm literally pinned down my a dumpster because
Speaker 2: it's a sniper like popping off at me with a
Speaker 2: thirty six, Like what's happening here? Like something's something's coming apart,
Speaker 2: you know, And so it's worthwhile for every reason. Well
Speaker 2: wrote some later books, and like I said, it's kind
Speaker 2: of interestingly James Elroy what I have mixed feelings about.
Speaker 2: But I I do think he's important to Los Angeles
Speaker 2: culture in some ways, and I I identify with him
Speaker 2: and in some respects. But he he said when he
Speaker 2: was home with some he said, uh, he said, he
Speaker 2: saved a bunch of his money from panhandling and stuff,
Speaker 2: and and like and uh say goodbye the Onion Field.
Speaker 2: It was like his favorite book, you know. And he
Speaker 2: and he always like Whooped Up the Cops and things
Speaker 2: like that. And so she she shot out Wamba a
Speaker 2: lot in his books, and then Wamba started writing books
Speaker 2: kind of in the vein of Elroy. Like the later
Speaker 2: stuff he wrote was kind of like a hard boiled
Speaker 2: type stuff. Like one of his books is about like
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, like like Salmonano Valley and like porn shit,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of grimy. I mean, that's a grimy
Speaker 2: fucking subject, but it but it's I didn't find it
Speaker 2: off putting, but I thought that it was for tablo reasons.
Speaker 2: I'm mean, I read all kinds of stuff that people
Speaker 2: probably find I would think it's gross, but it seemed
Speaker 2: so something. It seems kind of like affected about it.
Speaker 2: But so I I wouldn't recommend is like later stuff,
Speaker 2: but definitely definitely read The Onion Field. I don't read
Speaker 2: The Choir Boys. The Choir Boys is one of the
Speaker 2: when I was sending out Frog packages before it became
Speaker 2: too like Bell Luminous to send them out to people.
Speaker 2: I want to get back to doing that, but I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to do it in a way where it's
Speaker 2: not just like me going to the post office and
Speaker 2: sending packages. But I think I sent out like five
Speaker 2: or six paperbacks to The Choir Boys because I like
Speaker 2: the book that much and it uh, it's had a
Speaker 2: not insignificant impact on my own writing. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: about all I got for one. I I appreciate you
Speaker 2: abiding my suggestions because, like I said, I think I
Speaker 2: think he's I think he's an important contributor to the
Speaker 2: kind of catalog of police lid, particularly particularly in the
Speaker 2: capacities we're talking about. So I thought it was important, man,
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 1: Am I have I have a suggestion this This episode
Speaker 1: was sort of sort of like our movie reviews, and
Speaker 1: I think we should release one publicly so people can
Speaker 1: see what's uh, you know, what we do. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I think I think Resurrection Man would be a good
Speaker 1: one to release publicly because that's one where you're just
Speaker 1: breaking down the whole history of everything in the real
Speaker 1: guys and area. I think people will really get off
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to review it
Speaker 2: is because I thought people would be thirsty, because people
Speaker 2: when I draw troubles oriented content, like people seem to
Speaker 2: be really interested in it, you know. And I try
Speaker 2: and do so very respectfully because for obvious reasons. And
Speaker 2: I'm lucky that you know, I'm lucky that Ulster natives,
Speaker 2: including like you know, my dear friend Lady of Schelle,
Speaker 2: I've been willing to collab with me on stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's my bloodline and my confessional heritage. But obviously,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm I'm a fucking like Chicago jag Off.
Speaker 2: I don't know to them be incited to other than
Speaker 2: I don't have any great insight into the troubles, man.
Speaker 2: I just I, I mean, kind of an obsessive study
Speaker 2: of it because it's my heritage. But obviously you know
Speaker 2: that that's a totally different thing. But yeah, I think
Speaker 2: if it I think I think if it got the
Speaker 2: right audience, they would really pop. And yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: good idea. I think now is the time they do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll throw it up on my YouTube channel and
Speaker 1: direct everyone there to it. So thank you for this.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what to do next and privately and
Speaker 1: do some do some plugs, and I'm gonna go talk
Speaker 1: to the o G that's talks to the old Glory
Speaker 1: Club guys.
Speaker 2: That's great. I'm a I'm launching season three of the
Speaker 2: pod the first week in February. And the guy who's
Speaker 2: gonna collad with me on the first couple episodes, I
Speaker 2: talked to him by phone today, which was which is awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tweak it a little bit. I'll explain before
Speaker 2: I releave, before I upload it, but I'm every day
Speaker 2: today like I took five the first five episodes I'm
Speaker 2: season one from behind the paywall. I'm gonna keep doing
Speaker 2: that every day. I'm gonna remove five episodes from mind
Speaker 2: the paywall until season one and two are totally free,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna I'm gonna upload a bunch of other
Speaker 2: like free shit like content that I haven't released before.
Speaker 2: You can find all of that good stuff on my substack.
Speaker 2: It's real Thomas seven seven seven at substack dot substack
Speaker 2: dot com, on social media at capital r E A
Speaker 2: L number seven h O M A S seven seven seven,
Speaker 2: and you can go to my website Thomas seven seven
Speaker 2: seven dot com. But the first T or the only
Speaker 2: T is a seven tho are the best plays to
Speaker 2: define me. And like I said, I'm gonna make some changes,
Speaker 2: but I keep everybody in the loop of what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Like on substack, you know, I at least once a
Speaker 2: week I shout out like what's happening and what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: So that's the place to go.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you so much. Until the next time,
Speaker 1: Jean