March 23, 2022 • 38 mins
Commander Ammons, the lead hostage negotiator, provides Kate with more insight from the scene of the standoff. Audio from inside the restaurant sheds light on Gerald’s mindset after the incident and Kate hears first hand accounts of Nile’s condition from the EMT.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This podcast is a dramatization of fictionalized events that contains
culturally insensitive language and violence. It's been over an hour
since the shoot out with the police. Following Gerald's orders,
(00:23):
Jay s boards up the back door up front in
the main bar area. Martin measures the time by watching
droplets of blood dripped from Sergeant places leg. In the kitchen,
Gerald holds vigil over his son, Niles, who still stretched
across the cold, stainless steel table. From the looks of
the expansion and contraction of his diaphragm in the video,
Niles is definitely still breathing, but other than that, he's
(00:45):
unconscious and attempts to wake him have been futile. Looking
at Gerald here as he observes his wounded son, I
can't help but wonder what was going through his mind
as he studied Niles's dislocated shoulder, crushed orbital socket, smashed jaw,
broken thigh, fractured ankle, contused ribs, with taser burns on
(01:06):
his chest, and several other black and blue bruises all
over his body. What were the effects on this father's
psyche after this protracted, solemn observation of his only son,
Cleaning to life on that metal slap. Whatever was going
on inside Gerald's head in this moment as he stood
(01:26):
over his son, he showed nothing but absolute stoicism. This
case presented a lot of challenges from the start. Once
(01:48):
the ht S retreated into the building, the standoff had begun,
but as you can imagine, emotions were running high among
our officers because one of our own is being held
against his will, and word was starting to spread among
the ranks that officer Webb perished and route to the hospital.
That's Commander John Ammonds. He arrived and assumed control on
site shortly after the failed attempt by lower ranking officers
(02:12):
to take the building by force. So the first thing
I had to do and continued to have to do,
was remind my teams that we have to rely on
our training and treat this like any other standoff situation.
And was that hard to do. It was an uphill battle.
Tactical was incessantly in my ear lobbying for us to
make a push into the building again, and snipers in
(02:32):
their bird's nest positions wanted to carte blanche green light
to fire if the slightest window of opportunity presented itself.
Did you give it to them? No, of course not.
The last thing you want to do is give the
order to fire when you don't know what you're shooting at.
Because the windows were blocked. Correct, we had zero line
of sight into the building's interior because construction paper was
blocking all the windows. But normally there's some visibility into
(02:55):
the edifice or location that the HTS are in. Unfortunately,
not the case in this situation at all. So this
pretty much neutralized my sniper's primary function, which is to
do recon through their scopes, let alone taking a shot
at neutralizing the target or targets. If you add that
to the fact that we had a public safety and
security concern because of the growing crowd of onlookers and media,
(03:17):
plus the immense obstacle we faced in trying to negotiate
with these particular ht s when we had committed the
first hostile act. It was all challenging from the start
to say the least. And when you say first hostile act,
are you referring to place in web beating Niles up
or are you referencing your guys trying to take the building?
Allow me to clarify, Okay, I'm talking about from the
(03:39):
ht S point of view. Just a quick note, you'll
notice that the commander keeps saying the ht S. That's
police speak for hostage takers. When entering a negotiation, you
always have to be cognizant of the fact that what's
reality to you may not be reality to the other side.
My point is the AHTS viewing us the police as
their primary Verry Foe didn't do the negotiation any favors,
(04:03):
and we hadn't even begun negotiating. Everything, and I mean
everything that had transpired before command was even set up
made it extremely difficult for my negotiation team to get
off on the right foot with the ht S once
a private direct line of communication or a throw line
was established. And how did that first call with Gerald go?
(04:23):
Gerald Hales was compatifying the start. And when you say compile,
give an example. This is the voice of Detective stand Homer,
lead hostage negotiator. He had me meet him at the
Police Academy's gymnasium in Alesian Park, where he's overseen his
police league's basketball team. Homer is the assistant head coach.
As a general ruler, Thumb, I never grant any hostage
(04:45):
taker's requested demands until I'm in direct communication and more importantly,
until I built a basic report. The reason being is
you have to establish the rules of engagement if you're
going to have a successful negotiation. Now, this particular HT
Gerald Hayes was yelling at us from the get go,
(05:09):
before the throw line receiving up, telling us to put
down all weapons and that he needed a medic He's
essentially giving us on laundry listening demands before the opening tipple.
And in my twenty seven year career of negotiating standoffs,
I have learned that old saying, you give him a
(05:30):
mouse a cookie's gonna want a glass of milk, it
always applies. So it's very important you get the h
T used to understand as quickly as possible that everything
is an exchange. It is always transaction, never a hand out.
I'm gonna tell you that give him mouse a cookie bullshit,
(05:54):
Actually he did. How did you know that? This is
former Detective Curtis Patterson at the time, he was backup
lead negotiator on the case. I'm interviewing him aboard his
boat DOC in the Marina del Rey Harbor. That has
never been good at adapting to a situation, which is
funny because that's essential to our trade. You know, he
(06:14):
has his playbook and he runs it, and I just
wasn't the right approach for that night. By the time
we got to throw line up and finally made contact
inside the bar, Gerald had been asking for a doctor
for over an hour, but Helmer flat out ignored that
request because it wasn't in the order that he likes
to do things. Did you raise your concern? Yeah, but
(06:36):
the answer I got with some sny comment like amateur
hours over. I'd rather not enter into my negotiation doing
favors for nothing. After the botched attempt to take the building,
the commander wanted to make sure that we settled down
and did things the white wood. So once the throw
line was up, were you able to establish the type
(06:57):
of report that you like? Uh, there was a rocky
star Ham. We got his ass handed to him. That's
how it started. I'm sure you've heard that already. Unfortunately,
the surveillance audio from Jay's forty two only picks up
the bar side of the conversation, and where the phone
is located relative to surveillance cam. It's it's just been
(07:19):
really difficult to make out a lot of what Gerald
was saying. What about the department stapes? Wait, there's tapes?
What tapes? Detective Patterson explained to me that the department
has a policy of recording throw line conversations so that
negotiators can review things that were said during standoffs. This
was news to me because so far the police department
had told me that they had given me access to
(07:41):
all recordings from that day. That's not either. What you're
hearing is Patterson head first in a small storage cabin
in the underbelly of his boat. Normally I would return
it tapes back into heaven Is by now, but I
got fired before he gave me a chance to. So fun.
Do you think that you let go and anything to
(08:01):
do with the fact that I'm black? I think it
has everything to do with it. Oh wait, this might
be it. Can you have me that flashlight? Yeah? Patterson resurfaces,
slightly winded with the Manila envelope sealed inside of family
size zip block. When he was down there, he couldn't
find the machine he normally used to play the tapes,
(08:23):
so I had to make a run to three different
electronics stores to buy one that said it was worth it.
But before I play this first conversation between Gerald and
the lead negotiator, Detective Homer. I want to make sure
that you have a visual of who's inside the command
vehicle right before the inaugural throw line call. This is
me running my notes by Patterson for verification. Okay, so
(08:45):
tell me if I have this right. In the mobile
command trailer, we've got Commander Ammonds, he's the boss. Detective
stand Homer, the lead negotiator. Loud boys give him house
a cookie. And of course there's you, Detective Patterson, now
retire Detective Patterson noted, but at the time you were
active duty and secondly negotiator on the case, right. And
(09:08):
then we've also got Captain Flores. He's super ripped, ex military,
real no nonsense, lean, mean fighting machine kind of dude, right,
which figures because he runs both the squad team and
this niper team. And last, but certainly not least, the
only woman in the trailer, Officer Tara Rondos on Comms, who,
in addition to liaising with the phone company to patch
(09:30):
a direct line between the command trailer and Jason's for
you two, also referred to as a throw line, Tera,
is responsible for the flow of information to and from
officers inside the trailer and officers outside the trailer, as
well as the communications with the precinct. And I think
that's it. What about Sergeant Hobbs, I don't. I don't
(09:51):
have a sergeant Hobbs. Normally Hobbes will be in a
command trailer too, but he got kicked out. Kicked out.
You make it sound like you put on the time out. Yeah,
that's kind of what it was. Commander Ams is quick
to eight six you if you don't come correct, and
Hobbs is just different, you might just do a different drummer,
(10:13):
whereas the commander is more about keeping everyone on time
to his regimented beat. What one? That's Patterson offering me
a beer f y I I'm more of him her
little girl and usually only at dinner parties. But I
wasn't going to miss out on an opportunity to fratnize
(10:34):
with someone who has this much to share. Plus, nothing
helps get people talking like a little liquid courage. So
um yeah, I'll take one. Cheers, cheers. Would you know?
Truth be told? I just don't think I'm is like
(10:55):
the way Hobbs dressed. Hobbs wrinkly on Talk Hawaii ensure
offended the commander's sensibilities. Plus, hobbsn't really need to be
in with us to do his work. He was more
of a floater. And and what does Sergeant Hobbs do
exactly intel? But at this point he had none, which
meant we knew nothing. Before the first throw line call,
(11:18):
we hadn't even figured out who was in the building
for sure, other than Sergeant Place. We were guessing that
Jay Shaw could be among the ht s because it
was his restaurant and his car that was involved in
the traffic stop, but we weren't exactly on terra firm
or with that either. Now, this information gap really irked
the commander, maybe not as much as Hobbs a y
in shirt, but it definitely contributed to him getting put
(11:41):
in time out as you put it. So that's pretty
much the lay of the land. You've got Ammends, Homer, Patterson,
Floors and Ramos inside the trailer, and Hobbs somewhere nearby
trying to work up some solid intel. Meanwhile, back inside
Jason's forty two, everyone is huddled in the kitchen. When Hello,
(12:01):
my name is Detective stand Homer. I am here to
listen to you. And to make sure that everyone stays
safe so that we can resolve this situation. You should
have been had adopted here by now the are you
don't going to do that for you, sir? But I
need a little help on your end first. Is there
something I can call you instead of sir? Or Mr?
(12:23):
Name you go by? Anita? Okay? Anita? Is there a
last name? Doctor? Anita? Doctor? Hello? Hello? Damn he's off
the dentist. Yeah, yeah, I know he's all right, but
(12:45):
shy sending a medicant as a show of gootry. Patterson
was right. Homer basically did get owned by Gerald in
their first call. But the worst part of it is
for all that grandstanding, posturing and positioning, it just resulted
in more time ticking off the clock before Niles or
Sergeant Place for that matter, got medical attention. I was
(13:08):
scared shitless. I thought I might go in there and
get smoked. This is paramedic Darrel Hanover speaking. I mean,
the police prepped me and everything before I went in there.
But all I kept thinking about were those guys on
one of those boats leading up to the beach at
Normandy and how a lot of them, a lot of
them got killed before they even got to land, you know. Uh.
(13:29):
Then then I I yaked. I yaked behind a police cruiser,
which you know, settled me down some, but I was
still really nervous. What was it like when you first
entered Jayson's pretty too bar? And girl did I engined?
I was scared? Uh honestly, I don't even remember actually
walking through the door, you know, I It's almost like
I was transported in there. And then then all of
(13:51):
a sudden, Gerald is staring at me with those eyes.
Well they just had a vibe. Then said don't funk
with me. I didn't even notice he was holding a
gun until he shoved it in my face and started
patting me down. And it's it's weird. That's when I
started to calm down. With a gun in your face. Why,
before I went in, I had asked Captain Flora as
(14:11):
if I could sneak a weapon in Heck, yeah, but
but of course they said no. And I gotta tell
you once, once I was face to face with Gerald,
I was so glad not to be carrying because gun
or no gun, I could immediately tell he's not the
type of dude you want to funk with. So That's
what made me calm down. As Gerald was patting me down.
(14:32):
I was just relieved, you know, to know that I
didn't have anything on me that was going to piss
that guy off. Then he starts checking through my bag
to to to make sure everything's cool, you know. And
and he mentioned that that he had asked for a doctor,
and I pointed out proudly that I'm certified E m T.
Did that illicit change in his mood? Wait? What what
(14:53):
do you mean? Well? Did he act differently after you
stood up for your profession? No, it was all business.
He just went on a pull medication out of my
bag and asked me questions about what he's met. Does
kind of like he was quizzing me, you know. Uh. Finally,
he lowers his gun and sort of motions for me
to follow him and says, this way. The first person
(15:18):
I see is we crossed through the screening doors into
the kitchen is Sergeant Place, who's looking pale and sweaty,
and there's this little puddle of blood that had formed
underneath him. So naturally or or naturally, I lean in
to check on him. Why would you say unnaturally because
I didn't even see Niles lying on the kitchen table.
And to this day, I don't know if that's because
the officers outside it loaded me up before I entered
(15:40):
the bar, like with encouraging words like make sure places okay,
you know, make sure the sergeant is okay, and do
everything you can for place, or if I was just
rattled in general because of the situation. But Niles cool Niles.
He was invisible to me at first. And I'm trained
to observe a scene, you know, to treat out it,
out it. It literally took Gerald putting his hand on
(16:04):
me and saying not him helped my boy out. And
that still that bothers me to this day. You know
what does um? Uh? Yeah, it just feels like, you know,
like I'm the white guy and I only saw the
(16:25):
other white man that needed help, when clearly Niles was
was the one who needed attention first. And don't get
me wrong, sergeant Place was a mess. But this poor kid,
I I should have seen him first. Why do you
po Click to god, he looked like he had been
attacked by some kind of monster from a science fiction movie,
you know. Um. And I sort of remember saying to
(16:49):
myself but out loud, what happened to him. The poecast
police happened. Okay, I I swear to God. After Gerald
said that, I turned over to Sergeant Place and his
expression will hulp me for the rest of my life.
What did it look like? Wow, it's like nothing like
avoid Like nobody was home. So I don't know. It
(17:11):
was getting too meta for me. I wasn't there to
make observations on people's souls, so I just pushed my
thoughts aside and I went to work. After I checked
Nile's blood pressure, I sort of ran my fingers along
the back of Nile's neck and that's when when I
felt this big bulge in the C one and C
two area, and I thought, oh what what? He could
(17:32):
have a broken neck. So you knew pretty quickly that, yeah,
this was no bueno. Okay, what's happening right here? In
the video when Gerald gets in your face, we can't
hear what's being said, or at the time, I wasn't
aware or I hadn't totally clicked with me uh that
that that was his son on the table. So I
just said, very matter of fact that, you know what,
(17:54):
without any bedside manner, I said, um, his neck, he's broke,
and and that's when Gerald sort of blinks awkwardly and
gets in my face and says, you don't funk with me,
like he wanted to bully me out of my assessment.
And and then then then Jas kind of separates Gerald
(18:14):
away from me, and that's where you hear Jace say,
come on, man, what do we gotta do for noth
My immobilization kid is outside in the truck, so I
need to go grab that and come back after I
get him strapping, then I can take him to the hospital.
What you're waiting forull, go go go, go go get it. Hi, Hi,
(18:36):
got your hats off? Woo bamn. Six SWAT officers with
guns drawn. They jump on me and sweep me from
the building. I don't even think my feet were touching
the ground where they like literally carried me to their
command center, which wasn't what I was expecting at all,
(18:58):
because in my mind, I thought I was going to
quickly grab my supplies and head right back into the bar.
But then the cops they wanted to interview me first,
so I wasn't allowed to do what I felt was needed,
and things just kind of went sideways from there. He
was right when local media picks up the story, it
(19:19):
turns things that are already sideways upside down. I'm Colleen
Sanders and where here live from the Los Angeles Valley
the outside of jass Corny to sports bar and grill,
where a carjacking suspect opened fire on, leaving one officer
dead and the second officer wounded. Apparently, the suspect, along
(19:40):
with some of his accomplices, then took the surviving police
officer hostage and retreated into this restaurant, believed to be
owned by former football professional Jase Shaw. The status of
the officer being held captive is unknown at this time,
but we are hearing reports that Jason Shaw maybe among
the kidnappers, and if this is true, it would not
(20:03):
be Shaw's first. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Martin sims for counts. So inside the bar, you know,
we're expected the paramedic to come back and you know,
help noiles out get him to the hospital. We look
up and the news media is vilifying this poor kid
and they're calling him a carjacker. And I mean, this
(20:27):
is no other way saying it. Okay, it just it
just sucked. If Martin thought the media reporting was incendiary
and unfair. I had to get Jase's take on it
as well, But in order to do that, I had
some making up to do. If you remember my last
chat with Jason, it ended abruptly and not on good terms.
(20:50):
Get this thing off. Needless to say, I wasn't quite
sure how receptive Jas was going to be to me
reaching out again. Yellow, It's Kate Bell. Yeah, and I
just wanted to reach out to you and tell you
(21:12):
that I didn't like the way that things went the
last time that we chatted in I was hoping that, yeah,
maybe that I could get a do over. Hello. Hello, Hello.
It was clear Jay still needed some space, but I
did connect again with Michelle Niles's mother. Hello, Michelle, It's
(21:36):
Kate Bell. Hey, Kate. For the record, every time I
talked to Michelle, whether it was on the phone or
in person, I was acutely aware of how much I
was asking of her to revisit the day's events. For
the most part, I tried as best as I could
to employ a light touch, but when you're touching a
raw nerve, I'm not sure that's even possible. The last
(21:56):
thing I wanted to do was a fend Michelle in anyway,
and I and only didn't want her to shut down
at me like Jays did. Do you remember where you
were when you first found out that there was a problem.
I was actually on a date when I first knew
for sure that something was up. Niles have been pushing
me a lot to use social media's to get back
(22:17):
out there and start seeing people again. I think he
was worried about me being lonely when he went off
to school, and to be honest, so as I. So, yeah,
that's what I was doing on a date, even though
it always felt kind of weird to me to even
call it that. Why. I'm from the old school where
date is when a guy asked you for your digits
(22:38):
and their calls or whatever. But this was one of
those situations where you swipe, write and exchange a few
direct messages. How is it going awful? His shoes were
a hot mess, his personality was worse, and his cologne
smell bear. I've been there, So wait, why did you
(22:58):
say that you knew for sure that that something was up? Well?
I had text Niles a few times and gotten no response,
which had me super annoyed because I had just gotten
on him earlier that morning about that, but I was
trying to brush it aside and just you know, saying
(23:18):
to myself, Michelle, relaxed, give him some space. You need
to get used to his independence, that sort of thing.
So when did you realize it wasn't just a case
of him being slow to get back. Me and my
so called date were waiting for a table at the
bar at l CLO's when I saw Jason's forty two
on the news with a bunch of cop cars in
(23:39):
the background, and my heart just sunk. But it was
also confusing because the first reporting just didn't make any
sense at all. The media was making it out to
be like there was a carjacking that led to a
cops murder and the kidnapping of another policeman. So I
just started own now is his phone up in Gerald's too?
(24:02):
But no answer. Do you remember what you said to
your data? As all this was unfolding, I didn't know
that man, nothing. I just grabbed my purse, walk out
the restaurant, got in my car and started driving over
to Jason's forty two. Helma was still playing a slow
way too slowly asked me he wasn't happy about sending
the medica in for nothing, as he put it. So
(24:25):
he instructed me and Hobbs to interrogate Darryl, which I
wasn't totally mad at because at this point we were
still so far behind on intel. Not only was Detective
Patterson one of the most likable people I interviewed in
this process, he had recordings which I love. Here's a
tape of Key and Sergeant Hobbs interviewing Darryl the medic
after he came out of Jason's forty two. So the
(24:48):
car jackers slash hostage takers, they beat up Sergeant Place
after they shot him over forty shot. There's three voices
on this recording, and I want to make sure you
know who's who That first voice, would you probably record nice?
Is Detective Patterson? Yes, maybe I don't know. That was
Darryll the medic, who you've already met. Look forget about
(25:09):
Sergeant Place for a second. The police or somebody beat
up one of the guys inside, the young one, Niles,
and I need to take my immobilization kid in there
and get this boy to a hospital. A S A P. Wait.
So the car jacker got beat up, and that right
there is Sergeant Hobbs. If you remember, he was supposed
(25:30):
to be in the trailer with the rest of the
hostage negotiation team. The commander Ammon's kicked him out. Did
you guys keep talking about a car jacker? I don't
want anything about that, man, Okay, settle down. We're just
trying to figure out who's running things. How many of
them are there? How many guns? Listened to me for
a second. There's a kid badly beat that I need
(25:52):
to get him to a hospital. His father has the gun.
He's the one in charge, his father. Wait, how do
you know it's his father? It's such something. He said, Uh,
help my boy out, and he said helped my boy,
like help my whole way out? Or was it more
like help my boy as it help my son? Did
(26:14):
the way that he's acting, I'm pretty sure what was that?
I jumped up so quick my recorder fell off my
lap right there. We had it all wrong? Could I
be frightened you? Detective Homer? I want you to be
totally Frankly, former Detective Patterson was never cut out for
this kind of job. His conduct that day was totally inappropriate,
(26:38):
and obviously others agree with me on that, which is
why he is no longer on the force. You don't
go popping your mouth off in the background while the
lead negotiator is on a call with an HD. You
know why that is because you run the risk of
emboldening the h D. And that's exactly what happened. Needless
to say, Homer and Patterson were clear early at odds
(27:00):
on how to run the negotiation, but as far as
my investigation goes home or in the department, weren't exactly
doing everything they could to help me create a detailed,
factual narrative. They were more concerned with pushing their narrative. Patterson,
on the other hand, was much more forthright and even
candid about his own mistakes. And not only that. Again,
(27:21):
if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have access to
recordings of the throw line conversations. Mr Homer, listen, stop
fucking playing with me. Em T were both to come
right back. I want to do that for you, but
you have to deal with me and Nita. This is
how it works. Now. Why don't you send down Sergeant
(27:42):
Place and your guy that needs help. Yeah, that we
get both of them on their way to say Joe's hospital. Dan,
give this guy what he wants. Were you gonna lose
a free They hung up again. Kurtish you out of
your goddamn mind. There is a lot going on here,
so let me run it back for you, beat by beat.
(28:03):
While Gerald is talking to Halmer on the throw line,
Patterson enters the mobile command vehicle and you can hear
him in the background imploring Hallmark too given to Gerald's demands.
At the same time this is happening back in the bar,
Nile starts convulsion in the kitchen. Jason notices nile shaking
body and calls out to Gerald. Gerald hangs the phone up,
then hobbles quickly over to check on his son and
(28:23):
sees Nile's body gyrating violently on the table. Without hesitation,
Gerald marches straight out the front door, his gun raised
and pointed at a sea of cops. Every police officer
on the scene aims back at Gerald when the unthinkable happens,
(28:50):
I had tactical and all my men on a tight leash.
You never really know for sure until it's tested, right, Well,
this was that. Test Ander Ammon's recounts his thoughts when
Gerald came bursting out of the building. Any one of
my snipers could have dropped Gerald, but they held fire.
So good on them. That said snipers tend to be
(29:10):
a more disciplined bunch. Where we really caught a break,
is it? None of the policeman on the ground flinched, Kate.
If one man fired, it would have been like the
fourth of July out there. But that didn't happen either,
So good on all them too, especially considering we could
have mistakenly fired on that crazy e MT. So, Darryl,
what were you thinking when you went charging in between
the police and Gerald like that? I wasn't thinking, but
(29:35):
in all honesty, as soon as I saw Gerald come outside,
I knew exactly what was going on. Luckily I was
sitting on the bumper of my vehicle, so I just
reached up and I grabbed my DFIB kit and the stretcher,
then ran as fast as I could toward the building.
I have probably watched the YouTube clip of you charging
with your gear towards the bar at least ten times.
Did you consider how dangerous of a situation that was?
(29:58):
I didn't. I just stacted. You know a lot of
people would say what you did was heroic. I'd say
more like one part foolish, one part guilty conscience and
one small part heroic. What part was guilty conscience? I
should have bolted for that door a lot sooner, and
I knew that kid needed immediate help. Who knows if
(30:20):
I had gotten him sooner? Who knows? You know? Do
you think the outcome could have been different? Maybe? I
set up the archive surveillance feeds from the bar and
I played them on my computer monitor for Darryl and
asked him to talk me through what we're seeing and hearing.
Starting here, Yeah, that's good, cool, Okay. So here Gerald
(30:43):
is pointing his gun at the police. They all have
their guns trained on him. I go running and sort
of brushed past Gerald at the door on my way
into the bar. In the video you can see him
falling behind me, And in this camera you can see
we rushed straight over the kitchen and by the time
I get to Niles, he's unresponsive. I check his pulse, nothing.
(31:06):
I cut an Aile's shirt open and proceed to give
him chest compressions. Two three, six eight h I'm wanna
take going for me? True wow. Touch of patient analyzing
(31:35):
from the patient to stand back shot will be deliverer
and three two shot. Done doing that, he's him Wait,
let the corn do its thing. When Darrel says rather clinically,
he's in spasm. This may be the most terrifying thing
I've ever seen, and part of me felt like it
(31:58):
was overkilled to describe what it looks like. But then
I said, fuck that, because passing current through this kid's
body twice, the first time outside when he was being
taste and now in an effort to revive him, is
part of the horror of what was done to him.
So here goes. The current doesn't move like a sudden jolt.
It's more like a rolling wave. Niles tongue would sort
(32:20):
of stick out of his mouth and then undulate and twirl,
and his fingers curled up like he suffered from cerebral policy,
and then his body would relax, almost as if a
demon was being slowly exercised. Three shot, one shot delivered,
(32:50):
Hey me at right back, take over chess compressions again
out wow, six seven, commencing about the mouth six seven.
(33:18):
They repeat this, physically punishing an emotionally draining cycle for
more than ten minutes. It's pretty apparent by this point
that CPR isn't working. Gerald is still doing chess compressions,
but the machine is asking him to clear. We shocked
him six times, which is a lot. General rule of
thumb is if a patient doesn't revive after three shocks,
(33:41):
it's not likely to happen. Hey, look, he's spokeful man. Sure,
even as a professional, it can be very difficult stop
life saving efforts. But you know when he's done. When
(34:05):
when you've done all you can, Jas puts his hand
on Gerald's arm, and Gerald sort of slaps Jace away
and takes a step back. The fun out. At the time,
part of me wanted to ask if I could check
on Sergeant Place, but something told me it was not
the time to press my luck. If I was a hero,
(34:28):
like people said, I would have insisted that I get
to go treat Sergeant Place as well. But I didn't
want to sit Gerald off, you know. Plus, from what
I could see, the police officers still had time. Towards
the end of my discussion with Darryl, I asked him
if there was anything else, any detail about either of
the two times he was in the bar that could
(34:49):
shed some light on the day's events. No, not really,
Oh well, yeah, I guess there's something. Um did I
tell you that my wife and I just had her
second kid? Oh no, he didn't. Congratulations, thanks, Little sucker
called us totally by surprise. It wasn't planned at all,
and we found out really late. Anyway, when we went
(35:14):
in for the gender appointment, the doctor told us it
was a boy, and I leaned over to my wife
and I said, right then and there, I know what
I wanted his name to be. You named him Niles? No,
we named him Gerald. Wow, that's after everything? Why, well,
(35:38):
he did everything he could for his boy. I can't
say I would make all of the same choices, but
I'd like to think that I'd do anything for either
of my kids. So yeah. As we watched the valence
footage of Darryl exiting the bar for the second time,
Swap meets him at the door with the same level
(35:58):
of militaristic gusto that they read it him with the
first time he left the building. It felt different. How's
that being carried away from the building The first time
I felt like I was floating. Second time, I was
conscious of my own weight. I was literally thinking, why
am I so heavy? When that reporter shofter microphone in
(36:19):
my face? Can you tell us what it's like in there,
back off the areas off limits, like what was that?
Who fire? Who fire? I don't know. I think it
came from inside. More in what Happens next Time on
hashtag Matter. Hashtag Matter starring Aman Joseph as Gerald Hayes,
(36:54):
Jennifer Christopher as Kate Bell, Steve Harris as Jason shaw Hayley,
Joel Osman as Sergeant Place, Pooch Hall as Martin Sims,
and Snoop Dogg as Big H. Additional performances by Nile
Bullock as Niles Hayes, Serena Pouncey as Michelle Hayes, Monte
(37:15):
Russell as Detective Patterson, and Alex Vaughan as Darryl Hanover.
Hashtag Matter was written and directed by Dylan C. Brown.
Our executive producers are Sandy Bailey, Lauren Holman, Dylan Brown,
Winnie Kemp, and Amon Joseph. Audio designed by Wolf at
(37:36):
the Door, sound design and mix by Josh Falcon, music
by Jonathan Sandford, edited by Darren Bowling, and our sound
director is Alexander Kemp. Produced by Toby Lawless and Lucy Jones.
Casting by Lawless Casting. Hashtag Matter is a production of
(37:58):
Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio and
an association with Wolf at the Door. For more podcasts
from shod Land Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This podcast is a dramatization of fictionalized events that contains
culturally insensitive language and violence. It's been over an hour
since the shoot out with the police. Following Gerald's orders,
(00:23):
Jay s boards up the back door up front in
the main bar area. Martin measures the time by watching
droplets of blood dripped from Sergeant places leg. In the kitchen,
Gerald holds vigil over his son, Niles, who still stretched
across the cold, stainless steel table. From the looks of
the expansion and contraction of his diaphragm in the video,
Niles is definitely still breathing, but other than that, he's
(00:45):
unconscious and attempts to wake him have been futile. Looking
at Gerald here as he observes his wounded son, I
can't help but wonder what was going through his mind
as he studied Niles's dislocated shoulder, crushed orbital socket, smashed jaw,
broken thigh, fractured ankle, contused ribs, with taser burns on
(01:06):
his chest, and several other black and blue bruises all
over his body. What were the effects on this father's
psyche after this protracted, solemn observation of his only son,
Cleaning to life on that metal slap. Whatever was going
on inside Gerald's head in this moment as he stood
(01:26):
over his son, he showed nothing but absolute stoicism. This
case presented a lot of challenges from the start. Once
(01:48):
the ht S retreated into the building, the standoff had begun,
but as you can imagine, emotions were running high among
our officers because one of our own is being held
against his will, and word was starting to spread among
the ranks that officer Webb perished and route to the hospital.
That's Commander John Ammonds. He arrived and assumed control on
site shortly after the failed attempt by lower ranking officers
(02:12):
to take the building by force. So the first thing
I had to do and continued to have to do,
was remind my teams that we have to rely on
our training and treat this like any other standoff situation.
And was that hard to do. It was an uphill battle.
Tactical was incessantly in my ear lobbying for us to
make a push into the building again, and snipers in
(02:32):
their bird's nest positions wanted to carte blanche green light
to fire if the slightest window of opportunity presented itself.
Did you give it to them? No, of course not.
The last thing you want to do is give the
order to fire when you don't know what you're shooting at.
Because the windows were blocked. Correct, we had zero line
of sight into the building's interior because construction paper was
blocking all the windows. But normally there's some visibility into
(02:55):
the edifice or location that the HTS are in. Unfortunately,
not the case in this situation at all. So this
pretty much neutralized my sniper's primary function, which is to
do recon through their scopes, let alone taking a shot
at neutralizing the target or targets. If you add that
to the fact that we had a public safety and
security concern because of the growing crowd of onlookers and media,
(03:17):
plus the immense obstacle we faced in trying to negotiate
with these particular ht s when we had committed the
first hostile act. It was all challenging from the start
to say the least. And when you say first hostile act,
are you referring to place in web beating Niles up
or are you referencing your guys trying to take the building?
Allow me to clarify, Okay, I'm talking about from the
(03:39):
ht S point of view. Just a quick note, you'll
notice that the commander keeps saying the ht S. That's
police speak for hostage takers. When entering a negotiation, you
always have to be cognizant of the fact that what's
reality to you may not be reality to the other side.
My point is the AHTS viewing us the police as
their primary Verry Foe didn't do the negotiation any favors,
(04:03):
and we hadn't even begun negotiating. Everything, and I mean
everything that had transpired before command was even set up
made it extremely difficult for my negotiation team to get
off on the right foot with the ht S once
a private direct line of communication or a throw line
was established. And how did that first call with Gerald go?
(04:23):
Gerald Hales was compatifying the start. And when you say compile,
give an example. This is the voice of Detective stand Homer,
lead hostage negotiator. He had me meet him at the
Police Academy's gymnasium in Alesian Park, where he's overseen his
police league's basketball team. Homer is the assistant head coach.
As a general ruler, Thumb, I never grant any hostage
(04:45):
taker's requested demands until I'm in direct communication and more importantly,
until I built a basic report. The reason being is
you have to establish the rules of engagement if you're
going to have a successful negotiation. Now, this particular HT
Gerald Hayes was yelling at us from the get go,
(05:09):
before the throw line receiving up, telling us to put
down all weapons and that he needed a medic He's
essentially giving us on laundry listening demands before the opening tipple.
And in my twenty seven year career of negotiating standoffs,
I have learned that old saying, you give him a
(05:30):
mouse a cookie's gonna want a glass of milk, it
always applies. So it's very important you get the h
T used to understand as quickly as possible that everything
is an exchange. It is always transaction, never a hand out.
I'm gonna tell you that give him mouse a cookie bullshit,
(05:54):
Actually he did. How did you know that? This is
former Detective Curtis Patterson at the time, he was backup
lead negotiator on the case. I'm interviewing him aboard his
boat DOC in the Marina del Rey Harbor. That has
never been good at adapting to a situation, which is
funny because that's essential to our trade. You know, he
(06:14):
has his playbook and he runs it, and I just
wasn't the right approach for that night. By the time
we got to throw line up and finally made contact
inside the bar, Gerald had been asking for a doctor
for over an hour, but Helmer flat out ignored that
request because it wasn't in the order that he likes
to do things. Did you raise your concern? Yeah, but
(06:36):
the answer I got with some sny comment like amateur
hours over. I'd rather not enter into my negotiation doing
favors for nothing. After the botched attempt to take the building,
the commander wanted to make sure that we settled down
and did things the white wood. So once the throw
line was up, were you able to establish the type
(06:57):
of report that you like? Uh, there was a rocky
star Ham. We got his ass handed to him. That's
how it started. I'm sure you've heard that already. Unfortunately,
the surveillance audio from Jay's forty two only picks up
the bar side of the conversation, and where the phone
is located relative to surveillance cam. It's it's just been
(07:19):
really difficult to make out a lot of what Gerald
was saying. What about the department stapes? Wait, there's tapes?
What tapes? Detective Patterson explained to me that the department
has a policy of recording throw line conversations so that
negotiators can review things that were said during standoffs. This
was news to me because so far the police department
had told me that they had given me access to
(07:41):
all recordings from that day. That's not either. What you're
hearing is Patterson head first in a small storage cabin
in the underbelly of his boat. Normally I would return
it tapes back into heaven Is by now, but I
got fired before he gave me a chance to. So fun.
Do you think that you let go and anything to
(08:01):
do with the fact that I'm black? I think it
has everything to do with it. Oh wait, this might
be it. Can you have me that flashlight? Yeah? Patterson resurfaces,
slightly winded with the Manila envelope sealed inside of family
size zip block. When he was down there, he couldn't
find the machine he normally used to play the tapes,
(08:23):
so I had to make a run to three different
electronics stores to buy one that said it was worth it.
But before I play this first conversation between Gerald and
the lead negotiator, Detective Homer. I want to make sure
that you have a visual of who's inside the command
vehicle right before the inaugural throw line call. This is
me running my notes by Patterson for verification. Okay, so
(08:45):
tell me if I have this right. In the mobile
command trailer, we've got Commander Ammonds, he's the boss. Detective
stand Homer, the lead negotiator. Loud boys give him house
a cookie. And of course there's you, Detective Patterson, now
retire Detective Patterson noted, but at the time you were
active duty and secondly negotiator on the case, right. And
(09:08):
then we've also got Captain Flores. He's super ripped, ex military,
real no nonsense, lean, mean fighting machine kind of dude, right,
which figures because he runs both the squad team and
this niper team. And last, but certainly not least, the
only woman in the trailer, Officer Tara Rondos on Comms, who,
in addition to liaising with the phone company to patch
(09:30):
a direct line between the command trailer and Jason's for
you two, also referred to as a throw line, Tera,
is responsible for the flow of information to and from
officers inside the trailer and officers outside the trailer, as
well as the communications with the precinct. And I think
that's it. What about Sergeant Hobbs, I don't. I don't
(09:51):
have a sergeant Hobbs. Normally Hobbes will be in a
command trailer too, but he got kicked out. Kicked out.
You make it sound like you put on the time out. Yeah,
that's kind of what it was. Commander Ams is quick
to eight six you if you don't come correct, and
Hobbs is just different, you might just do a different drummer,
(10:13):
whereas the commander is more about keeping everyone on time
to his regimented beat. What one? That's Patterson offering me
a beer f y I I'm more of him her
little girl and usually only at dinner parties. But I
wasn't going to miss out on an opportunity to fratnize
(10:34):
with someone who has this much to share. Plus, nothing
helps get people talking like a little liquid courage. So
um yeah, I'll take one. Cheers, cheers. Would you know?
Truth be told? I just don't think I'm is like
(10:55):
the way Hobbs dressed. Hobbs wrinkly on Talk Hawaii ensure
offended the commander's sensibilities. Plus, hobbsn't really need to be
in with us to do his work. He was more
of a floater. And and what does Sergeant Hobbs do
exactly intel? But at this point he had none, which
meant we knew nothing. Before the first throw line call,
(11:18):
we hadn't even figured out who was in the building
for sure, other than Sergeant Place. We were guessing that
Jay Shaw could be among the ht s because it
was his restaurant and his car that was involved in
the traffic stop, but we weren't exactly on terra firm
or with that either. Now, this information gap really irked
the commander, maybe not as much as Hobbs a y
in shirt, but it definitely contributed to him getting put
(11:41):
in time out as you put it. So that's pretty
much the lay of the land. You've got Ammends, Homer, Patterson,
Floors and Ramos inside the trailer, and Hobbs somewhere nearby
trying to work up some solid intel. Meanwhile, back inside
Jason's forty two, everyone is huddled in the kitchen. When Hello,
(12:01):
my name is Detective stand Homer. I am here to
listen to you. And to make sure that everyone stays
safe so that we can resolve this situation. You should
have been had adopted here by now the are you
don't going to do that for you, sir? But I
need a little help on your end first. Is there
something I can call you instead of sir? Or Mr?
(12:23):
Name you go by? Anita? Okay? Anita? Is there a
last name? Doctor? Anita? Doctor? Hello? Hello? Damn he's off
the dentist. Yeah, yeah, I know he's all right, but
(12:45):
shy sending a medicant as a show of gootry. Patterson
was right. Homer basically did get owned by Gerald in
their first call. But the worst part of it is
for all that grandstanding, posturing and positioning, it just resulted
in more time ticking off the clock before Niles or
Sergeant Place for that matter, got medical attention. I was
(13:08):
scared shitless. I thought I might go in there and
get smoked. This is paramedic Darrel Hanover speaking. I mean,
the police prepped me and everything before I went in there.
But all I kept thinking about were those guys on
one of those boats leading up to the beach at
Normandy and how a lot of them, a lot of
them got killed before they even got to land, you know. Uh.
(13:29):
Then then I I yaked. I yaked behind a police cruiser,
which you know, settled me down some, but I was
still really nervous. What was it like when you first
entered Jayson's pretty too bar? And girl did I engined?
I was scared? Uh honestly, I don't even remember actually
walking through the door, you know, I It's almost like
I was transported in there. And then then all of
(13:51):
a sudden, Gerald is staring at me with those eyes.
Well they just had a vibe. Then said don't funk
with me. I didn't even notice he was holding a
gun until he shoved it in my face and started
patting me down. And it's it's weird. That's when I
started to calm down. With a gun in your face. Why,
before I went in, I had asked Captain Flora as
(14:11):
if I could sneak a weapon in Heck, yeah, but
but of course they said no. And I gotta tell
you once, once I was face to face with Gerald,
I was so glad not to be carrying because gun
or no gun, I could immediately tell he's not the
type of dude you want to funk with. So That's
what made me calm down. As Gerald was patting me down.
(14:32):
I was just relieved, you know, to know that I
didn't have anything on me that was going to piss
that guy off. Then he starts checking through my bag
to to to make sure everything's cool, you know. And
and he mentioned that that he had asked for a doctor,
and I pointed out proudly that I'm certified E m T.
Did that illicit change in his mood? Wait? What what
(14:53):
do you mean? Well? Did he act differently after you
stood up for your profession? No, it was all business.
He just went on a pull medication out of my
bag and asked me questions about what he's met. Does
kind of like he was quizzing me, you know. Uh. Finally,
he lowers his gun and sort of motions for me
to follow him and says, this way. The first person
(15:18):
I see is we crossed through the screening doors into
the kitchen is Sergeant Place, who's looking pale and sweaty,
and there's this little puddle of blood that had formed
underneath him. So naturally or or naturally, I lean in
to check on him. Why would you say unnaturally because
I didn't even see Niles lying on the kitchen table.
And to this day, I don't know if that's because
the officers outside it loaded me up before I entered
(15:40):
the bar, like with encouraging words like make sure places okay,
you know, make sure the sergeant is okay, and do
everything you can for place, or if I was just
rattled in general because of the situation. But Niles cool Niles.
He was invisible to me at first. And I'm trained
to observe a scene, you know, to treat out it,
out it. It literally took Gerald putting his hand on
(16:04):
me and saying not him helped my boy out. And
that still that bothers me to this day. You know
what does um? Uh? Yeah, it just feels like, you know,
like I'm the white guy and I only saw the
(16:25):
other white man that needed help, when clearly Niles was
was the one who needed attention first. And don't get
me wrong, sergeant Place was a mess. But this poor kid,
I I should have seen him first. Why do you
po Click to god, he looked like he had been
attacked by some kind of monster from a science fiction movie,
you know. Um. And I sort of remember saying to
(16:49):
myself but out loud, what happened to him. The poecast
police happened. Okay, I I swear to God. After Gerald
said that, I turned over to Sergeant Place and his
expression will hulp me for the rest of my life.
What did it look like? Wow, it's like nothing like
avoid Like nobody was home. So I don't know. It
(17:11):
was getting too meta for me. I wasn't there to
make observations on people's souls, so I just pushed my
thoughts aside and I went to work. After I checked
Nile's blood pressure, I sort of ran my fingers along
the back of Nile's neck and that's when when I
felt this big bulge in the C one and C
two area, and I thought, oh what what? He could
(17:32):
have a broken neck. So you knew pretty quickly that, yeah,
this was no bueno. Okay, what's happening right here? In
the video when Gerald gets in your face, we can't
hear what's being said, or at the time, I wasn't
aware or I hadn't totally clicked with me uh that
that that was his son on the table. So I
just said, very matter of fact that, you know what,
(17:54):
without any bedside manner, I said, um, his neck, he's broke,
and and that's when Gerald sort of blinks awkwardly and
gets in my face and says, you don't funk with me,
like he wanted to bully me out of my assessment.
And and then then then Jas kind of separates Gerald
(18:14):
away from me, and that's where you hear Jace say,
come on, man, what do we gotta do for noth
My immobilization kid is outside in the truck, so I
need to go grab that and come back after I
get him strapping, then I can take him to the hospital.
What you're waiting forull, go go go, go go get it. Hi, Hi,
(18:36):
got your hats off? Woo bamn. Six SWAT officers with
guns drawn. They jump on me and sweep me from
the building. I don't even think my feet were touching
the ground where they like literally carried me to their
command center, which wasn't what I was expecting at all,
(18:58):
because in my mind, I thought I was going to
quickly grab my supplies and head right back into the bar.
But then the cops they wanted to interview me first,
so I wasn't allowed to do what I felt was needed,
and things just kind of went sideways from there. He
was right when local media picks up the story, it
(19:19):
turns things that are already sideways upside down. I'm Colleen
Sanders and where here live from the Los Angeles Valley
the outside of jass Corny to sports bar and grill,
where a carjacking suspect opened fire on, leaving one officer
dead and the second officer wounded. Apparently, the suspect, along
(19:40):
with some of his accomplices, then took the surviving police
officer hostage and retreated into this restaurant, believed to be
owned by former football professional Jase Shaw. The status of
the officer being held captive is unknown at this time,
but we are hearing reports that Jason Shaw maybe among
the kidnappers, and if this is true, it would not
(20:03):
be Shaw's first. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Martin sims for counts. So inside the bar, you know,
we're expected the paramedic to come back and you know,
help noiles out get him to the hospital. We look
up and the news media is vilifying this poor kid
and they're calling him a carjacker. And I mean, this
(20:27):
is no other way saying it. Okay, it just it
just sucked. If Martin thought the media reporting was incendiary
and unfair. I had to get Jase's take on it
as well, But in order to do that, I had
some making up to do. If you remember my last
chat with Jason, it ended abruptly and not on good terms.
(20:50):
Get this thing off. Needless to say, I wasn't quite
sure how receptive Jas was going to be to me
reaching out again. Yellow, It's Kate Bell. Yeah, and I
just wanted to reach out to you and tell you
(21:12):
that I didn't like the way that things went the
last time that we chatted in I was hoping that, yeah,
maybe that I could get a do over. Hello. Hello, Hello.
It was clear Jay still needed some space, but I
did connect again with Michelle Niles's mother. Hello, Michelle, It's
(21:36):
Kate Bell. Hey, Kate. For the record, every time I
talked to Michelle, whether it was on the phone or
in person, I was acutely aware of how much I
was asking of her to revisit the day's events. For
the most part, I tried as best as I could
to employ a light touch, but when you're touching a
raw nerve, I'm not sure that's even possible. The last
(21:56):
thing I wanted to do was a fend Michelle in anyway,
and I and only didn't want her to shut down
at me like Jays did. Do you remember where you
were when you first found out that there was a problem.
I was actually on a date when I first knew
for sure that something was up. Niles have been pushing
me a lot to use social media's to get back
(22:17):
out there and start seeing people again. I think he
was worried about me being lonely when he went off
to school, and to be honest, so as I. So, yeah,
that's what I was doing on a date, even though
it always felt kind of weird to me to even
call it that. Why. I'm from the old school where
date is when a guy asked you for your digits
(22:38):
and their calls or whatever. But this was one of
those situations where you swipe, write and exchange a few
direct messages. How is it going awful? His shoes were
a hot mess, his personality was worse, and his cologne
smell bear. I've been there, So wait, why did you
(22:58):
say that you knew for sure that that something was up? Well?
I had text Niles a few times and gotten no response,
which had me super annoyed because I had just gotten
on him earlier that morning about that, but I was
trying to brush it aside and just you know, saying
(23:18):
to myself, Michelle, relaxed, give him some space. You need
to get used to his independence, that sort of thing.
So when did you realize it wasn't just a case
of him being slow to get back. Me and my
so called date were waiting for a table at the
bar at l CLO's when I saw Jason's forty two
on the news with a bunch of cop cars in
(23:39):
the background, and my heart just sunk. But it was
also confusing because the first reporting just didn't make any
sense at all. The media was making it out to
be like there was a carjacking that led to a
cops murder and the kidnapping of another policeman. So I
just started own now is his phone up in Gerald's too?
(24:02):
But no answer. Do you remember what you said to
your data? As all this was unfolding, I didn't know
that man, nothing. I just grabbed my purse, walk out
the restaurant, got in my car and started driving over
to Jason's forty two. Helma was still playing a slow
way too slowly asked me he wasn't happy about sending
the medica in for nothing, as he put it. So
(24:25):
he instructed me and Hobbs to interrogate Darryl, which I
wasn't totally mad at because at this point we were
still so far behind on intel. Not only was Detective
Patterson one of the most likable people I interviewed in
this process, he had recordings which I love. Here's a
tape of Key and Sergeant Hobbs interviewing Darryl the medic
after he came out of Jason's forty two. So the
(24:48):
car jackers slash hostage takers, they beat up Sergeant Place
after they shot him over forty shot. There's three voices
on this recording, and I want to make sure you
know who's who That first voice, would you probably record nice?
Is Detective Patterson? Yes, maybe I don't know. That was
Darryll the medic, who you've already met. Look forget about
(25:09):
Sergeant Place for a second. The police or somebody beat
up one of the guys inside, the young one, Niles,
and I need to take my immobilization kid in there
and get this boy to a hospital. A S A P. Wait.
So the car jacker got beat up, and that right
there is Sergeant Hobbs. If you remember, he was supposed
(25:30):
to be in the trailer with the rest of the
hostage negotiation team. The commander Ammon's kicked him out. Did
you guys keep talking about a car jacker? I don't
want anything about that, man, Okay, settle down. We're just
trying to figure out who's running things. How many of
them are there? How many guns? Listened to me for
a second. There's a kid badly beat that I need
(25:52):
to get him to a hospital. His father has the gun.
He's the one in charge, his father. Wait, how do
you know it's his father? It's such something. He said, Uh,
help my boy out, and he said helped my boy,
like help my whole way out? Or was it more
like help my boy as it help my son? Did
(26:14):
the way that he's acting, I'm pretty sure what was that?
I jumped up so quick my recorder fell off my
lap right there. We had it all wrong? Could I
be frightened you? Detective Homer? I want you to be
totally Frankly, former Detective Patterson was never cut out for
this kind of job. His conduct that day was totally inappropriate,
(26:38):
and obviously others agree with me on that, which is
why he is no longer on the force. You don't
go popping your mouth off in the background while the
lead negotiator is on a call with an HD. You
know why that is because you run the risk of
emboldening the h D. And that's exactly what happened. Needless
to say, Homer and Patterson were clear early at odds
(27:00):
on how to run the negotiation, but as far as
my investigation goes home or in the department, weren't exactly
doing everything they could to help me create a detailed,
factual narrative. They were more concerned with pushing their narrative. Patterson,
on the other hand, was much more forthright and even
candid about his own mistakes. And not only that. Again,
(27:21):
if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have access to
recordings of the throw line conversations. Mr Homer, listen, stop
fucking playing with me. Em T were both to come
right back. I want to do that for you, but
you have to deal with me and Nita. This is
how it works. Now. Why don't you send down Sergeant
(27:42):
Place and your guy that needs help. Yeah, that we
get both of them on their way to say Joe's hospital. Dan,
give this guy what he wants. Were you gonna lose
a free They hung up again. Kurtish you out of
your goddamn mind. There is a lot going on here,
so let me run it back for you, beat by beat.
(28:03):
While Gerald is talking to Halmer on the throw line,
Patterson enters the mobile command vehicle and you can hear
him in the background imploring Hallmark too given to Gerald's demands.
At the same time this is happening back in the bar,
Nile starts convulsion in the kitchen. Jason notices nile shaking
body and calls out to Gerald. Gerald hangs the phone up,
then hobbles quickly over to check on his son and
(28:23):
sees Nile's body gyrating violently on the table. Without hesitation,
Gerald marches straight out the front door, his gun raised
and pointed at a sea of cops. Every police officer
on the scene aims back at Gerald when the unthinkable happens,
(28:50):
I had tactical and all my men on a tight leash.
You never really know for sure until it's tested, right, Well,
this was that. Test Ander Ammon's recounts his thoughts when
Gerald came bursting out of the building. Any one of
my snipers could have dropped Gerald, but they held fire.
So good on them. That said snipers tend to be
(29:10):
a more disciplined bunch. Where we really caught a break,
is it? None of the policeman on the ground flinched, Kate.
If one man fired, it would have been like the
fourth of July out there. But that didn't happen either,
So good on all them too, especially considering we could
have mistakenly fired on that crazy e MT. So, Darryl,
what were you thinking when you went charging in between
the police and Gerald like that? I wasn't thinking, but
(29:35):
in all honesty, as soon as I saw Gerald come outside,
I knew exactly what was going on. Luckily I was
sitting on the bumper of my vehicle, so I just
reached up and I grabbed my DFIB kit and the stretcher,
then ran as fast as I could toward the building.
I have probably watched the YouTube clip of you charging
with your gear towards the bar at least ten times.
Did you consider how dangerous of a situation that was?
(29:58):
I didn't. I just stacted. You know a lot of
people would say what you did was heroic. I'd say
more like one part foolish, one part guilty conscience and
one small part heroic. What part was guilty conscience? I
should have bolted for that door a lot sooner, and
I knew that kid needed immediate help. Who knows if
(30:20):
I had gotten him sooner? Who knows? You know? Do
you think the outcome could have been different? Maybe? I
set up the archive surveillance feeds from the bar and
I played them on my computer monitor for Darryl and
asked him to talk me through what we're seeing and hearing.
Starting here, Yeah, that's good, cool, Okay. So here Gerald
(30:43):
is pointing his gun at the police. They all have
their guns trained on him. I go running and sort
of brushed past Gerald at the door on my way
into the bar. In the video you can see him
falling behind me, And in this camera you can see
we rushed straight over the kitchen and by the time
I get to Niles, he's unresponsive. I check his pulse, nothing.
(31:06):
I cut an Aile's shirt open and proceed to give
him chest compressions. Two three, six eight h I'm wanna
take going for me? True wow. Touch of patient analyzing
(31:35):
from the patient to stand back shot will be deliverer
and three two shot. Done doing that, he's him Wait,
let the corn do its thing. When Darrel says rather clinically,
he's in spasm. This may be the most terrifying thing
I've ever seen, and part of me felt like it
(31:58):
was overkilled to describe what it looks like. But then
I said, fuck that, because passing current through this kid's
body twice, the first time outside when he was being
taste and now in an effort to revive him, is
part of the horror of what was done to him.
So here goes. The current doesn't move like a sudden jolt.
It's more like a rolling wave. Niles tongue would sort
(32:20):
of stick out of his mouth and then undulate and twirl,
and his fingers curled up like he suffered from cerebral policy,
and then his body would relax, almost as if a
demon was being slowly exercised. Three shot, one shot delivered,
(32:50):
Hey me at right back, take over chess compressions again
out wow, six seven, commencing about the mouth six seven.
(33:18):
They repeat this, physically punishing an emotionally draining cycle for
more than ten minutes. It's pretty apparent by this point
that CPR isn't working. Gerald is still doing chess compressions,
but the machine is asking him to clear. We shocked
him six times, which is a lot. General rule of
thumb is if a patient doesn't revive after three shocks,
(33:41):
it's not likely to happen. Hey, look, he's spokeful man. Sure,
even as a professional, it can be very difficult stop
life saving efforts. But you know when he's done. When
(34:05):
when you've done all you can, Jas puts his hand
on Gerald's arm, and Gerald sort of slaps Jace away
and takes a step back. The fun out. At the time,
part of me wanted to ask if I could check
on Sergeant Place, but something told me it was not
the time to press my luck. If I was a hero,
(34:28):
like people said, I would have insisted that I get
to go treat Sergeant Place as well. But I didn't
want to sit Gerald off, you know. Plus, from what
I could see, the police officers still had time. Towards
the end of my discussion with Darryl, I asked him
if there was anything else, any detail about either of
the two times he was in the bar that could
(34:49):
shed some light on the day's events. No, not really,
Oh well, yeah, I guess there's something. Um did I
tell you that my wife and I just had her
second kid? Oh no, he didn't. Congratulations, thanks, Little sucker
called us totally by surprise. It wasn't planned at all,
and we found out really late. Anyway, when we went
(35:14):
in for the gender appointment, the doctor told us it
was a boy, and I leaned over to my wife
and I said, right then and there, I know what
I wanted his name to be. You named him Niles? No,
we named him Gerald. Wow, that's after everything? Why, well,
(35:38):
he did everything he could for his boy. I can't
say I would make all of the same choices, but
I'd like to think that I'd do anything for either
of my kids. So yeah. As we watched the valence
footage of Darryl exiting the bar for the second time,
Swap meets him at the door with the same level
(35:58):
of militaristic gusto that they read it him with the
first time he left the building. It felt different. How's
that being carried away from the building The first time
I felt like I was floating. Second time, I was
conscious of my own weight. I was literally thinking, why
am I so heavy? When that reporter shofter microphone in
(36:19):
my face? Can you tell us what it's like in there,
back off the areas off limits, like what was that?
Who fire? Who fire? I don't know. I think it
came from inside. More in what Happens next Time on
hashtag Matter. Hashtag Matter starring Aman Joseph as Gerald Hayes,
(36:54):
Jennifer Christopher as Kate Bell, Steve Harris as Jason shaw Hayley,
Joel Osman as Sergeant Place, Pooch Hall as Martin Sims,
and Snoop Dogg as Big H. Additional performances by Nile
Bullock as Niles Hayes, Serena Pouncey as Michelle Hayes, Monte
(37:15):
Russell as Detective Patterson, and Alex Vaughan as Darryl Hanover.
Hashtag Matter was written and directed by Dylan C. Brown.
Our executive producers are Sandy Bailey, Lauren Holman, Dylan Brown,
Winnie Kemp, and Amon Joseph. Audio designed by Wolf at
(37:36):
the Door, sound design and mix by Josh Falcon, music
by Jonathan Sandford, edited by Darren Bowling, and our sound
director is Alexander Kemp. Produced by Toby Lawless and Lucy Jones.
Casting by Lawless Casting. Hashtag Matter is a production of
(37:58):
Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio and
an association with Wolf at the Door. For more podcasts
from shod Land Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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