March 2, 2026 • 34 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (03/02) - Don Mihalek comes on the show to talk about what the domestic fallout could be from the US and Israel striking Iran over the weekend that resulted in the death of the Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. There was a mass shooting in Austin, TX over the weekend and the gunman was a supporter of radical Islam and the US State Department released a list of countries that Americans need to leave if they are currently in. Video of the depositions of LAFD firefighter Scott Pike and others was released.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobel
podcast on the iHeartRadio app. How are you? Ww? The
hell went on this weekend? It's crazy take off one day,
three day weekend and everything's gone anywhire. But we got
we got a war going on and it's been a
good start. And for anybody carping or whining about we
(00:24):
killed Ayah Tota for God's sake, huh, I mean we
should all be taken off work today. It should be
a federal holiday. I tootah and forty of his top officials.
I just that is terrific. I you know, he got
what he deserved after all these years. I mean he's
(00:46):
been there I think since nineteen eighty nine, so that's
thirty seven years a terrorism from this guy. And he
finally got a missile through his head. So I think
this is great. I can't imagine anybody criticizing this, this
particular invasion anyway. Also, what people are worried about, because
obviously this war is going to go on for at
(01:07):
least a few weeks, is does Iran and other terrorist
groups have the capability to retaliate against the US within
our borders? How many sleeper cells do they have, And
the Department of Homeland Security has been talking with law
enforcement officials around the country, and everybody has to keep
(01:30):
watch on suspicious activity. And of course, we did have
a mass shooting in Austin, Texas by someone who seemed
to be very sympathetic to the Iranian cause. We're going
to talk now with the senior Secret Service agent now
retired and ABC News law enforcement contributor Don Mahalakan to
tell us about what we ought to be looking for
(01:54):
here in this country. Don, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'm good, John, And I just wanted to say You're
opening about the troops was excellent because there's a lot
of people that feel this has been forty years into
making and we were overdue to do what we're doing
right now in Iran, and the Navy and the troops
are performing brilliantly in the Israelis as well. And and
but you know, we have to be mindful that we've
(02:19):
lost troops, which is always tragic and said.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, that's true, but this really, this is something Jimmy
Carter should have done in nineteen seventy nine. It would
have been a much much different world in the mid
East and really all over. But it's been done now
and a lot of work to go and things can
always go wrong. But I know, I know. The first
thing my wife wondered about after this this attack was
(02:43):
announced is like, Okay, so what's going to happen here next?
I mean, and if you live in a city like
Los Angeles that always, you know, you figure you're gonna
hear bad news. At any moment, something's gonna blow up.
Tell us about how how all this works, because HS
is already talking to law enforcement in the big cities.
(03:04):
What's the plan here?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So Iran is the largest state sponsor of terror in
the world. They've been a designated state sponsor of terrorist
since nineteen eighty four, sixteen billion dollars spent on terrorists
and terrorist related activities around the world, most of it
through proxies like Hesbulah and Hamas. They are also active
on the in the cyber world. They are one of
(03:29):
the top purveyors of cyber attacks as well. So for
us here domestically and after the alert the DHS put out,
and may I say, DHS is doing this while they're
shut down, effectively taking a critical protection tool off the plate,
including its cybersecurity. SCISSA cybersecurity agency is effectively shut down
(03:51):
right now. They are particularly warning about not only the
cyber threats, which pretty much target infrastructure, electrical grid, government entities,
that kind of thing, but also the potential of a
lone wolf attacker because the Internet is the greatest weapon
we've given terrorists, So now somebody like we saw in Austin,
(04:12):
Texas can sit in their basement and be incentivized or
radicalized and then on their own decide to go conduct
an attack in the name of whatever, even though they've
never met anybody from there and they've never sworn allegiance
to it. So that is probably the bigger thing we're facing.
And they tend to attack soft targets, malls, shopping centers, bars,
(04:34):
places where a lot of people gather in his light security,
which reinforces the whole see something, say something that if
you're out and about never hurts to call the police
if something doesn't look right, or something standing up on
the back of your neck and doesn't feel right, and
have the police come out and check it, because they'd
rather do that than have to respond to a mass attack.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So this is more likely to be a single person
rather than an organized group, and this single person may
have been radicalized in their basement and not necessarily getting
orders from some high command in Iran.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
As you pointed out so eloquently, they've taken out the
majority of the Iranian leadership, So I don't know who's
in charge there that could coordinate and order an attack,
and I think the intelligence is indicating that they're a
little disorganized right now. Never say never, But as we
(05:31):
saw in Austin, Texas, and as we've seen recently around
the world, it's these lone wolf attackers that are said
devised tend to be the bigger threat, more so than
an al Katus style nine to eleven attack.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Right, So you really got to keep your eyes open
and if you see a suspicious character, that just immediately
call And a lot of people feel intimidated because they
don't want to be accused of being racist or profiling.
And this is a time to say the health all
that stuff. You see somebody whose presence bothers you because
they their actions are suspicious, their look is suspicious. You
(06:03):
got you gotta call in because you know this guy
took killed three people and he shot another fourteen, but easily,
like we saw it happened in Las Vegas years ago.
You can take at dozens and dozens of people with
one weapon.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, and a lot of people just don't believe their eyes.
They see stuff and they can't believe that it's really happening,
or that it really looks the way it looks, or
they make an excuse for the behavior the actions they're seeing.
But I would say people have to stop doing that.
They have to immediately call nine one one. The police
anywhere in the country don't mind if you call them
(06:39):
if something looks suspicious, because they'd raut a center officer
to check it out and figure out it's nothing, then
then have to mobilize for a mass casualty response or
an attack response. So h call the police. That's what
they're there for. They don't mind coming. It helps everybody,
keeps everybody safe. You should, It's what you should be
(07:00):
doing right now in order to make that you and
everybody you love stay safe.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So in the Department of Homeland Security, they put the
FBI on high alert, and they'd like, I guess local
police to be on some kind of elevated alert. What
does that mean practically? What are the police here in
La theoretically doing if they're on a higher alert, what
is the FBI doing at LA.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So for the FBI and the federal agencies, it'll look
different than what the local agencies are doing. The For
the FBI, they're going to be looking at a lot
of their intelligence, a lot of their tips, and running
out a lot of things that may be coming to
their attention or maybe that have been coming to their
attention but they haven't had time to do so. And
(07:47):
then they're going to be talking to all of their partners,
their law enforcement partners federal, state, local, as well as
private sector, and keeping in touch to make sure they're
staying on top of any potential threats or tips that
come up. Cross But the local law enforcement LA, probably
like New York City, has a type of a tactical
response unit that can be mobilized to show a presence.
(08:10):
I'm sure you might see some of that out there,
which is basically a deterrents effect for the community and
also puts more eyes on the street because oftentimes when
people see police officers, that dissuades them from doing anything inappropriate.
So you might see some of that there. And also
the police department should be pick picking up their interagency
(08:32):
cooperation with the federal agency, so that flow of information
and intelligence piece is happening regularly versus maybe infrequently.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So it's the time they're going to follow up on
all the phone calls and all the emails, and they're
going to communicate with the other agencies because we know,
we know in the past, when bad stuff has happened,
we find out later on that agencies weren't talking to
each other when they should have been.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, And the other thing I just want to hit on, John,
is the whole traveling overseas right now, because I've gotten
that question and said, you guys aren't that far from
a neighboring country. I would recommend anybody thinking of traveling
overseas right now to go to the State Department's website.
They have a whole list by list countries showing where
is okay to travel to whereas not. They have a
(09:16):
whole write up stare about different countries. Mexico right now.
A lot of Mexico's in the red, So I wouldn't
go to Mexico right now. There's a lot of other places,
but pay attention to those advisories and also look at
the State to rom if they have a program called
the STEP program where if you are going overseas you
can give the State Department your information and to put
you on a communication router for that country, so if
(09:37):
you're in that country, you can get updates on what's
going on there if something happens, and more importantly for
personal recovery, if something does happen in the country and
you can't get to the embassy, they know where to
come find you.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
All right, John Mahallack, thanks very much for coming on.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Thanks John, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
All right, law enforcement contributor for ABC and a retired
senior Secret Service age. Now when we come back, the
State Department has just in the last half hour issued
a list of fourteen countries in the Middle East that
if Americans are living there, they ought to leave. And
I assume if you're planning to travel there, you shouldn't go.
(10:17):
And I'm looking at the list of fourteen and we
could just call this the deveror mark a summer vacation itinerary, right,
the tour of fourteen Middle Eastern countries.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
That I'm planning on going there over the.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Tournay mark the tournday mark because we hit the jackpite
again because it turns out a hotel that never stayed
at what was it last year, two years ago in Dubai,
what was.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
It one or two years ago? I can't even remember.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
It got hit by a falling drone. Yes, I saw
they were hitting hotels in Dubai. I guess Saturday morning
and I texted her said did you stay at this one?
She goes, no, but another one that got hit by
It's like wow, so well, we'll give you the list
(11:09):
of countries that you shouldn't go, even if Debra is
taking her family there this summer.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Will you to follow us at John Cobelt Radio, on
social media at John Cobelt Radio, or subscribe on YouTube?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Do that.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
We put up videos most days after the show YouTube
dot com, slash at John Cobelt's show YouTube dot com
slash at John Cobelt Show. And if you're just joining us.
We had Don Mahalakan telling us about the alert that
Department Homeland Security it's a critical incident alert because there's
(11:49):
all kinds of whack jobs out there in their basement
who are connected to Iran or emotionally aligned, and they can,
you know, commit a terrorist attack at any moment in
the name of Allah. You heard Sunday morning, some crazy guy.
(12:11):
He's in Dega Diagne. He was born in Senegal and
he came to this country. He's fifty three years old.
He's fifty three years old. And on Sunday morning, about
twenty four hours after we started dropping missiles, he shows
(12:32):
up in a bar and kills three people and injured
fourteen others. And they found in his house an Iranian
flag and photos of all the Iranian leaders. You never
know when somebody has some sick, bizarre obsession. I mean,
what see, he's from Senegal, he's here, we gave him citizenship.
(12:54):
This is a guy that was legal. Would I would
stop letting everybody in, I really would if I was president.
Four years nobody gets in. That's it. No legal, no legal,
no illegal, no green cards, no nothing. And eventually police
(13:15):
killed diagone. But you know, and there's no way to
stop a guy like this because you know, and the
thing is dumbass. Democrats in Washington have temporarily cut the
funding to Department of Homeless Land Security because they're having
their little hissy fit over ICE. ICE, however, is fully
(13:36):
funded through twenty twenty nine. They were funded by a
separate bill, so they were pounding their chests saying, well,
where we're going to deny funding to the Department of
Homeland Security until we work out, you know, a new
agreement on where the money's going to go for. We
don't want to fund ICE. You already ICE is already funded.
This is everything else, as Mahallack said, it's it. This
(14:00):
is to fund like cybersecurity threats, you know, that agency,
that department that tries to keep track of the crazy
people online who are making or planning threats. In the meantime,
State Department about a half an hour ago said that
if you live in the following countries, you should get out.
(14:20):
And I assume also you shouldn't go there. And well,
obviously Iron's on the top of the list. I'm sorry,
you know, Iran.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Has never been on my bucket list, believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, if it was, if it was peaceful, it would
be because it's it's it's beautiful there, yeah, and historic.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm not covering myself.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
And being treated the way women are being treated I'm
not going to any place like that.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well that that's what's crazy about all the left wingers.
I know. There was another protest today and the left
wingers are screaming that we shouldn't be in Iran. Iran
has sever beer restrictions on how women can behave and
they are covered up and they kill gay people.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
So you know, do they still do stoning?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Uh? I don't know. I haven't been to a stoning
in a while.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I haven't either. Maybe that's just me. I like a
hot stone massage, but yeah, that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Although yeah, see the thing is you're you're likely to
end up tied to a tree and be a victim
one of these things.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Yes, yeah, that's why it's not wise for me to go.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Uh, get out of Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the
West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Like I said, that was
your whole summer tour there. Yeah, Now you went to
the UAE because you stopped in Dubai and they had
(15:51):
six inches of rain I think, and a massive flood
harsh started flooding and then the hotel you stayed at
got whacked by some by a drone. Yeah, what they
got got shot out of the sky and it fell
on your hotel. Yeah, you were in the hotel two
years ago when the flood happened. Yeah, this was yes,
Well that That's what's interesting is that is that wherever
(16:14):
you've gone, there's damages like before during an afterpect. I
know you're arrival.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
What kind of karma do.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
I don't know? Because you were you know, you were there.
You were going to go a week after Israel.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I was going to go to Egypt, Israel and.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Jordan, right right, And then we have the Port of
Iarta situation that you were going to go to.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I'm going in May.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yes, sure, nobody else is. I was talking people, are
they are?
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, I'm still planning on going.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Do not go to Port of Iarda in May. All right,
Deborah is going to be there. We've given you the list.
You've been warned. Consider this an official Department of Homeland
Security warning.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Okay, and that'll be less crowds.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I mean Debora and I were going through, uh well, Deborah,
my wife, Yeah, was we were going through where we'd
want to fly to this summer on a vacation, and
I want to finalize the list and make sure you're
not going That's why. And if you're getting there ahead
of me, I'm going home and saying no way, I
don't play, no no way. Better better double check don
(17:15):
Hollicks list with all the countries in the red zone
and stuff too. Yeah, it would. We got We got
to cover all possibilities here, because I think you're at
like a six, a six vacation losing streak here, like
six different places you've gone to something bad has happened.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Yes, that is except the last it was just the mosquitoes.
I was covered in Bali with mosquitos and I thought
I was going to get den gay or something.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
But but yeah, malaria. I don't know, West Nile. I
was advice. Did you get Oh it was disgusting.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
I had so many and I'm allergic to mosquito bites,
and so they became these huge welts. I had to
have a doctor who I didn't understand come to my
hotel room to make sure I wasn't dying.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that's a seven vacation losing. That's seven. That doesn't
happen to normal people. A lot of people go to BALI.
I've never heard this. Google it, all right, we come back.
Scott Pike is an LAFT firefighter, and you may have
heard the attorneys for the plaintiffs and the Pacific Palisades
(18:31):
Homeowners lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. They have
released some of the la Fire Department deposition videos and
I want to play some of these. I might do
it a couple of times throughout the show, because I
have quite a few clips, and I think it's beyond
a reasonable doubt that the reason we had the Palisades fire,
(18:52):
it was the Lockman fire that reignited, and it was
just incompetence and stupidity on the part of the la
Fired apart aartments on the part of their captains and
the fire chief and the mayor. They should have been
tracking this constantly as soon as it happened. We will
play you these clips and you can decide for yourself.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
You're listening to John Cobel's on Demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We'ren from three to six now and then after six
o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand. All right, that's the
new time slot. Three to six. Look, I'm showing up
at three, right, I'm showing up on time, all right.
I want to get right into this. This is really important.
It's taken over a year, fourteen months to get the
truth verified. But the attorneys for the Pacific Palisades homeowners
(19:43):
who had their homes destroyed the fire, the depositions are
now being released. The video and audio of the depositions
of firefighters, and it is clear that LA Fire Department
chiefs and commanders, battalion chiefs, whatever you want to call
the management really screwed up badly. They had the Lockman
(20:06):
fire on the first of January and twenty twenty five,
and it wasn't put out completely. And no matter how
much lying goes on, no matter how much covering up,
no matter how much people going I didn't know. I
didn't think. So this is pretty easy here. And star
witness in these depositions is a firefighter named Scott Pike,
(20:28):
and he tells the story about the day after the
Lockman fire. He was told to go pick up hoses
and even though he was still seeing hotspots.
Speaker 7 (20:41):
And our orders were that we were going to have
what we call like a hose pickup party, or we
were going to be tasked with going to pick up
hosts at the fire that occurred the night before. I
didn't even know his named Lockman fire at that point.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I'm putting two and two together now, but that's what
it was. But at the time was it was just like, hey,
fellas had.
Speaker 7 (21:01):
A brush fire last night, we're going to pick up hopes.
It was near the end of the line and we
were down in the burn, and it was about that time.
I was just looking around and I saw a slight
smoke on the ground. I saw branches that were smoking still,
(21:23):
and I could smell smoke, and there were I would
say several smokers in that immediate area. I'd say there
was like a handful, like five, But that's a lot
to me. It's just an indicator that stuff's still hot.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Five hot spots, five smoldering hot spots. The fire was
not put out. If you hear a fire captain say
this of Italian chief, they're lying. If Karen Bess says it,
she's lying. Wasn't put out. Here's cut too. He said
there wasn't a containment line for the Lockman fire, and
(22:02):
there weren't other firefighters around, and he saw more hotspots.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
So was there a containment line near where you first
saw these smokers?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Nothing obvious to me.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
It didn't look like there was a very good hand
line cut, not a clean differentiation between burn and green,
and there was a lot of unburnt fuel in the burn.
I looked around. There were no other firefighters, nobody. I
was the only one. So I went around and I
exposed a couple areas of different sizes, and that's where
(22:33):
I noticed hot coals.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Underneath the ashes.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
I could feel the heat coming off of it, and
I didn't even want to use my gloved hand because
it was hot, so I just kicked it with my
boot to kind of expose it. And there was like
red hot like coals that was still smoldering. I even
heard crackling. I go, from my experience, I feel like
(23:00):
we've been assigned to pick up hose today. But I
think a better move would be to pivot and go
to Chargi's hose lines and do a more throw them
mop up, just based on that small area as a
sample portion for what I was seeing so hot.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
He wouldn't use his gloved hand. He had his boot
kicking around stuff that was not only smoldering smoking, it
was crackling. Any things, Well, we got more work to
do here. We shouldn't be rolling up poses. It was obvious.
You just use your eyes. You use your eyes. And
to the touch, it was too hot, and he tried
(23:38):
to put out some of the hot spots. Listen to
Cup three.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
The way the hose was coming down the hill into
my area, I did what any good firefighter would do,
is there was residual water. I cracked the coupling and
I pinched the hose and I directed it into the
ashpit to try to get the residual water to just
cool out off and start to do something to mitigate
these ash pits. And steamed, and it crackled, and the
(24:04):
amount of water I put on it was still not enough.
I didn't put it completely out, so in my mind
I was just like the I feel this requires further action.
I just saw a couple of firefighters. I don't know
their names, I don't even know who they're assigned to,
and I just said it was like almost sarcastic. I
was like, hey, guys, are you seeing what I'm seeing?
(24:24):
Like maybe we should be charging these lines instead of
picking him up. And then they just kind of looked
at it and we're like, h like. So I initially
brought it to attention of my coworkers who are firefighters.
I felt like I got kind of blown off a
little bit, and then I mentioned it to the captain
once in my mind, I decided that one thing needs
(24:47):
mopped up.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
In my mind, everything needs to be interested. So that's
how I approached him as like, hey, cap.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Skipper or whatever, we have hotspots, we have some ash
pits or whatever's been alert to double check the whole area,
and maybe we need to switch our tactics.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So that's all it was. It was a blanket attempt.
And if a captain can't pick that up.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
From me saying that and make the right choices, that's
on him, because that's not my job to overstep and
tell him what to do. He earned that rank, so
that's how we work with chain and command. I understand
that I was the only one up there. I'm an
overtime guy. I'm not a captain. I don't make the
decisions on this. We're good soldiers, so I've been tasked
(25:32):
with picking up hosts. I'm like the house guest. I'm
not going to just tell people or try to micromanage
and give commands.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I'm not in charge.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, And that's a weakness, is that everybody's a trained
is trained not to confront or make a shine with
an idiot who's your boss? He had an idiot who's
the fire captain. I don't know who the name of
that person is at the moment, but here you want
to hear the lies that were told. Now you're at
Scott Pike, clearly hotspots and smoldering and smoking and crackling.
(26:09):
Kristin Crowley, the fire chief, said at a community meeting
on January sixteenth, we won't leave a fire that has
any hot spots. Well you did, Chief Deputy Joe Everett.
At the same meeting January sixteenth, the fire was dead out.
If it is determined that was the cause, that would
be a phenomenon. Chief Deputy Joe Everett, I guess we
(26:31):
have a phenomenon. I am Battalion Chief Mario Garcia. Firefighters
had told him about the smoldering ground in the hot rocks,
according to text messages that the Time saw from the
fire department, and they had texted Joe Everett, and they
(26:56):
also texted Chief Deputy Philip Flagel got ignored. Why why
this is basic firefighting? One oh one? If you or
I were standing there, we'd say, hey, that's still those
are hot coals. Hey, it's still smoking and smoldering here. Hey,
don't you have to put this out? Well? More coming up?
(27:19):
Got more clips to play more of Scott Pike.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
All right, let's continue here Los Angeles Fire Department firefighter
Scott Pike. We've been playing clips of his deposition that
he gave. There's that massive lawsuit from Palisades homeowners over
the fire. And in the last segment we he was
making it clear in several clips that there were plenty
(27:48):
of hotspots, plenty of smoking and smoldering. It was hot
to the Dutch. He would kick some of the debris
and rocks with his boots because his gloved hand wasn't
enough to protect himself from the from the heat. And
this next clip centers around a captain telling Scott Pike
(28:08):
and the other firefighters to roll up the hoses and
get out of there. Why did they not challenge the captain? More?
Play this clip? Four?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Did you ask.
Speaker 7 (28:22):
The captain why he hadn't directed other firefighters to mop
up the area better as you put it.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
No, because you don't question the captain.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
I just went back to work picking up hoose awaiting
new orders.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Did you ever get new orders?
Speaker 7 (28:36):
Sir?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
And a lot of guys that were there that day.
Speaker 7 (28:38):
It was the second so post holiday, I was already
working overtime because nobody else wanted to work it.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So a lot of people were like, let's just get
this hose picked up. That was the sentiment. I was feeling, like,
we have orders.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
This is why I never work well with people often
you find out, certainly not here in this moment, but
I've worked for a lot of idiots and you have
to question them. You know, the smartest people don't get
to be in charge all the time. So you have
a captain and he's got visible smoldering and smoking going
(29:13):
on hot rocks, and the captain is saying, roll up
the hoses and get out of here. Now that doesn't
cut it. Well, he's a captain here in that rank.
You know, you can't question the captain. Those are exactly
the people you have to question because they're stupid and
they have power. That's a bad combination or they're lazy
and they have power, or they got some kind of
(29:35):
agenda that they're not telling. I cannot imagine why a captain,
if he's being told by his firefighters that hey, we've
got a bad hotspots smoldering situation here, he wouldn't say, well,
let's keep working at it until it's completely out. Why
would that be? What possible reason would there be? Here's
(29:55):
another clip. Scott Pike says it still way.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
I haven't really spoken much on it because it kind
of sits heavy with me that nobody listened to me.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I felt like I got kind of blown off a
little bit, and.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
I haven't seen anybody step up and take responsibility.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
None of my leaders, none of the city leaders, nobody.
Speaker 7 (30:15):
I saw something, I said something, and to my best ability,
I felt like we could have done more. It's not
the point in my career where there's a lot of
stuff that people don't listen to us. Okay, you can
probably see what's going on in the whole.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
City, so well, that's the way of the world. People
had management often are not the brightest bulbs, and you
don't know why they do what they do. You don't
know why they're compromised that they've got something else going on,
or sometimes you just flat out stupid. Uh, let's go
to the next clip. Pike says he didn't see anybody
(30:49):
else putting out hotspots.
Speaker 8 (30:51):
Did you ever see anyone else that day extinguishing any smokers?
You know, sir, in your experience, all of those are
couple of rekindling.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (31:03):
The distance between the X where you saw those smokers
and where we see this yellow dot label Palisades fire origin.
Do you have any basis to give me any estimate
as to how far that is? Two to three hundred
feet and your experience, can an ember blow two to
three hundred feet?
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yes, sir, And yeah, that's a lot of what happened.
The embers started blowing much farther than that the night
of the second fire, the day of the second fire. Finally,
let's close out for now. Scott Pike never interviewed for
any after action report.
Speaker 8 (31:42):
Did anybody ever come to interview you in connection with
an after action report for the Lockman fire?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Oh, sir, I thought that was kind of weird.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
I feel like an accurate report would have involved interviewing
people who are actually on the scene that day. I'll
go ahead and say I saw some stuff that didn't
line up with what I saw coming out from my
leaders ATF.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
This ATF report was seventy six pages long. Do you
know how many pages there was on the Lochman fire?
Do you know? Tell me one?
Speaker 7 (32:12):
So here we sit in this room with all these
hundreds of thousand dollars and staffing and everything like that
right now, and what are we talking about the Lochman fire?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So we all know that the.
Speaker 7 (32:24):
Investigation, interviews and everything could have been done better, right,
that's why we're all here.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, well who do we have? We have a bunch
of clowns running the fire department. Christian Crowley followed, well
what do we have? Heini Moore? Now? And in between
we had Vie Aueva. So we had three clowns in
a row and their job was to cover up and
lie for Karen Dash and they did. On the after
action report, nobody talked to Scott Pike. He what's what
(32:55):
the other firefighters? He didn't see other firefighters putting out
the hotspot are joining him to confront the captain. I
know it was New Year's weekend. Everybody wanted to go
home ball games to watch, but you sign up for this.
You know, we're told to think that you guys are sacrificing,
putting your lives in danger. Well, in the moment where
(33:18):
it mattered, nobody would pipe up and say no, we
shouldn't leave, And somebody should have made this public. Somebody
should have made it public in the moment and said, hey,
the hotspot is still going on because we were listening
to constant warnings about the dangerous winds and the dangerous fire,
and none of these firefighters spoke up, and none of
(33:40):
them would challenge the captain. And how dumb is the captain?
And how deceitful are all these fire chiefs that we've
run through. Ronnie Vow and a van Ueva and himI
Moore and Kristin Crowling. Nobody on our side, Nobody on
the side of the Palisades homeowners. Everybody just shut up
and they went home. Come back. We're going to talk
(34:01):
with Carl Demyo, the Republican assemblyman. It looks like the
California Voter ID initiative is going to make it to
the ballot. They got the signatures. Debor Mark live in
the KFI twenty four our newsroom. You've been listening to
The John Cobelt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI AM six forty from three to
(34:23):
six pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 5 (34:28):
App KFI Am six More stimulating talk
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobel
podcast on the iHeartRadio app. How are you? Ww? The
hell went on this weekend? It's crazy take off one day,
three day weekend and everything's gone anywhire. But we got
we got a war going on and it's been a
good start. And for anybody carping or whining about we
(00:24):
killed Ayah Tota for God's sake, huh, I mean we
should all be taken off work today. It should be
a federal holiday. I tootah and forty of his top officials.
I just that is terrific. I you know, he got
what he deserved after all these years. I mean he's
(00:46):
been there I think since nineteen eighty nine, so that's
thirty seven years a terrorism from this guy. And he
finally got a missile through his head. So I think
this is great. I can't imagine anybody criticizing this, this
particular invasion anyway. Also, what people are worried about, because
obviously this war is going to go on for at
(01:07):
least a few weeks, is does Iran and other terrorist
groups have the capability to retaliate against the US within
our borders? How many sleeper cells do they have, And
the Department of Homeland Security has been talking with law
enforcement officials around the country, and everybody has to keep
(01:30):
watch on suspicious activity. And of course, we did have
a mass shooting in Austin, Texas by someone who seemed
to be very sympathetic to the Iranian cause. We're going
to talk now with the senior Secret Service agent now
retired and ABC News law enforcement contributor Don Mahalakan to
tell us about what we ought to be looking for
(01:54):
here in this country. Don, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'm good, John, And I just wanted to say You're
opening about the troops was excellent because there's a lot
of people that feel this has been forty years into
making and we were overdue to do what we're doing
right now in Iran, and the Navy and the troops
are performing brilliantly in the Israelis as well. And and
but you know, we have to be mindful that we've
(02:19):
lost troops, which is always tragic and said.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, that's true, but this really, this is something Jimmy
Carter should have done in nineteen seventy nine. It would
have been a much much different world in the mid
East and really all over. But it's been done now
and a lot of work to go and things can
always go wrong. But I know, I know. The first
thing my wife wondered about after this this attack was
(02:43):
announced is like, Okay, so what's going to happen here next?
I mean, and if you live in a city like
Los Angeles that always, you know, you figure you're gonna
hear bad news. At any moment, something's gonna blow up.
Tell us about how how all this works, because HS
is already talking to law enforcement in the big cities.
(03:04):
What's the plan here?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So Iran is the largest state sponsor of terror in
the world. They've been a designated state sponsor of terrorist
since nineteen eighty four, sixteen billion dollars spent on terrorists
and terrorist related activities around the world, most of it
through proxies like Hesbulah and Hamas. They are also active
on the in the cyber world. They are one of
(03:29):
the top purveyors of cyber attacks as well. So for
us here domestically and after the alert the DHS put out,
and may I say, DHS is doing this while they're
shut down, effectively taking a critical protection tool off the plate,
including its cybersecurity. SCISSA cybersecurity agency is effectively shut down
(03:51):
right now. They are particularly warning about not only the
cyber threats, which pretty much target infrastructure, electrical grid, government entities,
that kind of thing, but also the potential of a
lone wolf attacker because the Internet is the greatest weapon
we've given terrorists, So now somebody like we saw in Austin,
(04:12):
Texas can sit in their basement and be incentivized or
radicalized and then on their own decide to go conduct
an attack in the name of whatever, even though they've
never met anybody from there and they've never sworn allegiance
to it. So that is probably the bigger thing we're facing.
And they tend to attack soft targets, malls, shopping centers, bars,
(04:34):
places where a lot of people gather in his light security,
which reinforces the whole see something, say something that if
you're out and about never hurts to call the police
if something doesn't look right, or something standing up on
the back of your neck and doesn't feel right, and
have the police come out and check it, because they'd
rather do that than have to respond to a mass attack.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So this is more likely to be a single person
rather than an organized group, and this single person may
have been radicalized in their basement and not necessarily getting
orders from some high command in Iran.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
As you pointed out so eloquently, they've taken out the
majority of the Iranian leadership, So I don't know who's
in charge there that could coordinate and order an attack,
and I think the intelligence is indicating that they're a
little disorganized right now. Never say never, But as we
(05:31):
saw in Austin, Texas, and as we've seen recently around
the world, it's these lone wolf attackers that are said
devised tend to be the bigger threat, more so than
an al Katus style nine to eleven attack.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Right, So you really got to keep your eyes open
and if you see a suspicious character, that just immediately
call And a lot of people feel intimidated because they
don't want to be accused of being racist or profiling.
And this is a time to say the health all
that stuff. You see somebody whose presence bothers you because
they their actions are suspicious, their look is suspicious. You
(06:03):
got you gotta call in because you know this guy
took killed three people and he shot another fourteen, but easily,
like we saw it happened in Las Vegas years ago.
You can take at dozens and dozens of people with
one weapon.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, and a lot of people just don't believe their eyes.
They see stuff and they can't believe that it's really happening,
or that it really looks the way it looks, or
they make an excuse for the behavior the actions they're seeing.
But I would say people have to stop doing that.
They have to immediately call nine one one. The police
anywhere in the country don't mind if you call them
(06:39):
if something looks suspicious, because they'd raut a center officer
to check it out and figure out it's nothing, then
then have to mobilize for a mass casualty response or
an attack response. So h call the police. That's what
they're there for. They don't mind coming. It helps everybody,
keeps everybody safe. You should, It's what you should be
(07:00):
doing right now in order to make that you and
everybody you love stay safe.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So in the Department of Homeland Security, they put the
FBI on high alert, and they'd like, I guess local
police to be on some kind of elevated alert. What
does that mean practically? What are the police here in
La theoretically doing if they're on a higher alert, what
is the FBI doing at LA.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So for the FBI and the federal agencies, it'll look
different than what the local agencies are doing. The For
the FBI, they're going to be looking at a lot
of their intelligence, a lot of their tips, and running
out a lot of things that may be coming to
their attention or maybe that have been coming to their
attention but they haven't had time to do so. And
(07:47):
then they're going to be talking to all of their partners,
their law enforcement partners federal, state, local, as well as
private sector, and keeping in touch to make sure they're
staying on top of any potential threats or tips that
come up. Cross But the local law enforcement LA, probably
like New York City, has a type of a tactical
response unit that can be mobilized to show a presence.
(08:10):
I'm sure you might see some of that out there,
which is basically a deterrents effect for the community and
also puts more eyes on the street because oftentimes when
people see police officers, that dissuades them from doing anything inappropriate.
So you might see some of that there. And also
the police department should be pick picking up their interagency
(08:32):
cooperation with the federal agency, so that flow of information
and intelligence piece is happening regularly versus maybe infrequently.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So it's the time they're going to follow up on
all the phone calls and all the emails, and they're
going to communicate with the other agencies because we know,
we know in the past, when bad stuff has happened,
we find out later on that agencies weren't talking to
each other when they should have been.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, And the other thing I just want to hit on, John,
is the whole traveling overseas right now, because I've gotten
that question and said, you guys aren't that far from
a neighboring country. I would recommend anybody thinking of traveling
overseas right now to go to the State Department's website.
They have a whole list by list countries showing where
is okay to travel to whereas not. They have a
(09:16):
whole write up stare about different countries. Mexico right now.
A lot of Mexico's in the red, So I wouldn't
go to Mexico right now. There's a lot of other places,
but pay attention to those advisories and also look at
the State to rom if they have a program called
the STEP program where if you are going overseas you
can give the State Department your information and to put
you on a communication router for that country, so if
(09:37):
you're in that country, you can get updates on what's
going on there if something happens, and more importantly for
personal recovery, if something does happen in the country and
you can't get to the embassy, they know where to
come find you.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
All right, John Mahallack, thanks very much for coming on.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Thanks John, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
All right, law enforcement contributor for ABC and a retired
senior Secret Service age. Now when we come back, the
State Department has just in the last half hour issued
a list of fourteen countries in the Middle East that
if Americans are living there, they ought to leave. And
I assume if you're planning to travel there, you shouldn't go.
(10:17):
And I'm looking at the list of fourteen and we
could just call this the deveror mark a summer vacation itinerary, right,
the tour of fourteen Middle Eastern countries.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
That I'm planning on going there over the.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Tournay mark the tournday mark because we hit the jackpite
again because it turns out a hotel that never stayed
at what was it last year, two years ago in Dubai,
what was.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
It one or two years ago? I can't even remember.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
It got hit by a falling drone. Yes, I saw
they were hitting hotels in Dubai. I guess Saturday morning
and I texted her said did you stay at this one?
She goes, no, but another one that got hit by
It's like wow, so well, we'll give you the list
(11:09):
of countries that you shouldn't go, even if Debra is
taking her family there this summer.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Will you to follow us at John Cobelt Radio, on
social media at John Cobelt Radio, or subscribe on YouTube?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Do that.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
We put up videos most days after the show YouTube
dot com, slash at John Cobelt's show YouTube dot com
slash at John Cobelt Show. And if you're just joining us.
We had Don Mahalakan telling us about the alert that
Department Homeland Security it's a critical incident alert because there's
(11:49):
all kinds of whack jobs out there in their basement
who are connected to Iran or emotionally aligned, and they can,
you know, commit a terrorist attack at any moment in
the name of Allah. You heard Sunday morning, some crazy guy.
(12:11):
He's in Dega Diagne. He was born in Senegal and
he came to this country. He's fifty three years old.
He's fifty three years old. And on Sunday morning, about
twenty four hours after we started dropping missiles, he shows
(12:32):
up in a bar and kills three people and injured
fourteen others. And they found in his house an Iranian
flag and photos of all the Iranian leaders. You never
know when somebody has some sick, bizarre obsession. I mean,
what see, he's from Senegal, he's here, we gave him citizenship.
(12:54):
This is a guy that was legal. Would I would
stop letting everybody in, I really would if I was president.
Four years nobody gets in. That's it. No legal, no legal,
no illegal, no green cards, no nothing. And eventually police
(13:15):
killed diagone. But you know, and there's no way to
stop a guy like this because you know, and the
thing is dumbass. Democrats in Washington have temporarily cut the
funding to Department of Homeless Land Security because they're having
their little hissy fit over ICE. ICE, however, is fully
(13:36):
funded through twenty twenty nine. They were funded by a
separate bill, so they were pounding their chests saying, well,
where we're going to deny funding to the Department of
Homeland Security until we work out, you know, a new
agreement on where the money's going to go for. We
don't want to fund ICE. You already ICE is already funded.
This is everything else, as Mahallack said, it's it. This
(14:00):
is to fund like cybersecurity threats, you know, that agency,
that department that tries to keep track of the crazy
people online who are making or planning threats. In the meantime,
State Department about a half an hour ago said that
if you live in the following countries, you should get out.
(14:20):
And I assume also you shouldn't go there. And well,
obviously Iron's on the top of the list. I'm sorry,
you know, Iran.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Has never been on my bucket list, believe it or not.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, if it was, if it was peaceful, it would
be because it's it's it's beautiful there, yeah, and historic.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm not covering myself.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
And being treated the way women are being treated I'm
not going to any place like that.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well that that's what's crazy about all the left wingers.
I know. There was another protest today and the left
wingers are screaming that we shouldn't be in Iran. Iran
has sever beer restrictions on how women can behave and
they are covered up and they kill gay people.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
So you know, do they still do stoning?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Uh? I don't know. I haven't been to a stoning
in a while.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I haven't either. Maybe that's just me. I like a
hot stone massage, but yeah, that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Although yeah, see the thing is you're you're likely to
end up tied to a tree and be a victim
one of these things.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Yes, yeah, that's why it's not wise for me to go.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Uh, get out of Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the
West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Like I said, that was
your whole summer tour there. Yeah, Now you went to
the UAE because you stopped in Dubai and they had
(15:51):
six inches of rain I think, and a massive flood
harsh started flooding and then the hotel you stayed at
got whacked by some by a drone. Yeah, what they
got got shot out of the sky and it fell
on your hotel. Yeah, you were in the hotel two
years ago when the flood happened. Yeah, this was yes,
Well that That's what's interesting is that is that wherever
(16:14):
you've gone, there's damages like before during an afterpect. I
know you're arrival.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
What kind of karma do.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
I don't know? Because you were you know, you were there.
You were going to go a week after Israel.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I was going to go to Egypt, Israel and.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Jordan, right right, And then we have the Port of
Iarta situation that you were going to go to.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I'm going in May.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yes, sure, nobody else is. I was talking people, are
they are?
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah, I'm still planning on going.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Do not go to Port of Iarda in May. All right,
Deborah is going to be there. We've given you the list.
You've been warned. Consider this an official Department of Homeland
Security warning.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Okay, and that'll be less crowds.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I mean Debora and I were going through, uh well, Deborah,
my wife, Yeah, was we were going through where we'd
want to fly to this summer on a vacation, and
I want to finalize the list and make sure you're
not going That's why. And if you're getting there ahead
of me, I'm going home and saying no way, I
don't play, no no way. Better better double check don
(17:15):
Hollicks list with all the countries in the red zone
and stuff too. Yeah, it would. We got We got
to cover all possibilities here, because I think you're at
like a six, a six vacation losing streak here, like
six different places you've gone to something bad has happened.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Yes, that is except the last it was just the mosquitoes.
I was covered in Bali with mosquitos and I thought
I was going to get den gay or something.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
But but yeah, malaria. I don't know, West Nile. I
was advice. Did you get Oh it was disgusting.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
I had so many and I'm allergic to mosquito bites,
and so they became these huge welts. I had to
have a doctor who I didn't understand come to my
hotel room to make sure I wasn't dying.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, that's a seven vacation losing. That's seven. That doesn't
happen to normal people. A lot of people go to BALI.
I've never heard this. Google it, all right, we come back.
Scott Pike is an LAFT firefighter, and you may have
heard the attorneys for the plaintiffs and the Pacific Palisades
(18:31):
Homeowners lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. They have
released some of the la Fire Department deposition videos and
I want to play some of these. I might do
it a couple of times throughout the show, because I
have quite a few clips, and I think it's beyond
a reasonable doubt that the reason we had the Palisades fire,
(18:52):
it was the Lockman fire that reignited, and it was
just incompetence and stupidity on the part of the la
Fired apart aartments on the part of their captains and
the fire chief and the mayor. They should have been
tracking this constantly as soon as it happened. We will
play you these clips and you can decide for yourself.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
You're listening to John Cobel's on Demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We'ren from three to six now and then after six
o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand. All right, that's the
new time slot. Three to six. Look, I'm showing up
at three, right, I'm showing up on time, all right.
I want to get right into this. This is really important.
It's taken over a year, fourteen months to get the
truth verified. But the attorneys for the Pacific Palisades homeowners
(19:43):
who had their homes destroyed the fire, the depositions are
now being released. The video and audio of the depositions
of firefighters, and it is clear that LA Fire Department
chiefs and commanders, battalion chiefs, whatever you want to call
the management really screwed up badly. They had the Lockman
(20:06):
fire on the first of January and twenty twenty five,
and it wasn't put out completely. And no matter how
much lying goes on, no matter how much covering up,
no matter how much people going I didn't know. I
didn't think. So this is pretty easy here. And star
witness in these depositions is a firefighter named Scott Pike,
(20:28):
and he tells the story about the day after the
Lockman fire. He was told to go pick up hoses
and even though he was still seeing hotspots.
Speaker 7 (20:41):
And our orders were that we were going to have
what we call like a hose pickup party, or we
were going to be tasked with going to pick up
hosts at the fire that occurred the night before. I
didn't even know his named Lockman fire at that point.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I'm putting two and two together now, but that's what
it was. But at the time was it was just like, hey,
fellas had.
Speaker 7 (21:01):
A brush fire last night, we're going to pick up hopes.
It was near the end of the line and we
were down in the burn, and it was about that time.
I was just looking around and I saw a slight
smoke on the ground. I saw branches that were smoking still,
(21:23):
and I could smell smoke, and there were I would
say several smokers in that immediate area. I'd say there
was like a handful, like five, But that's a lot
to me. It's just an indicator that stuff's still hot.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Five hot spots, five smoldering hot spots. The fire was
not put out. If you hear a fire captain say
this of Italian chief, they're lying. If Karen Bess says it,
she's lying. Wasn't put out. Here's cut too. He said
there wasn't a containment line for the Lockman fire, and
(22:02):
there weren't other firefighters around, and he saw more hotspots.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
So was there a containment line near where you first
saw these smokers?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Nothing obvious to me.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
It didn't look like there was a very good hand
line cut, not a clean differentiation between burn and green,
and there was a lot of unburnt fuel in the burn.
I looked around. There were no other firefighters, nobody. I
was the only one. So I went around and I
exposed a couple areas of different sizes, and that's where
(22:33):
I noticed hot coals.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Underneath the ashes.
Speaker 7 (22:36):
I could feel the heat coming off of it, and
I didn't even want to use my gloved hand because
it was hot, so I just kicked it with my
boot to kind of expose it. And there was like
red hot like coals that was still smoldering. I even
heard crackling. I go, from my experience, I feel like
(23:00):
we've been assigned to pick up hose today. But I
think a better move would be to pivot and go
to Chargi's hose lines and do a more throw them
mop up, just based on that small area as a
sample portion for what I was seeing so hot.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
He wouldn't use his gloved hand. He had his boot
kicking around stuff that was not only smoldering smoking, it
was crackling. Any things, Well, we got more work to
do here. We shouldn't be rolling up poses. It was obvious.
You just use your eyes. You use your eyes. And
to the touch, it was too hot, and he tried
(23:38):
to put out some of the hot spots. Listen to
Cup three.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
The way the hose was coming down the hill into
my area, I did what any good firefighter would do,
is there was residual water. I cracked the coupling and
I pinched the hose and I directed it into the
ashpit to try to get the residual water to just
cool out off and start to do something to mitigate
these ash pits. And steamed, and it crackled, and the
(24:04):
amount of water I put on it was still not enough.
I didn't put it completely out, so in my mind
I was just like the I feel this requires further action.
I just saw a couple of firefighters. I don't know
their names, I don't even know who they're assigned to,
and I just said it was like almost sarcastic. I
was like, hey, guys, are you seeing what I'm seeing?
(24:24):
Like maybe we should be charging these lines instead of
picking him up. And then they just kind of looked
at it and we're like, h like. So I initially
brought it to attention of my coworkers who are firefighters.
I felt like I got kind of blown off a
little bit, and then I mentioned it to the captain
once in my mind, I decided that one thing needs
(24:47):
mopped up.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
In my mind, everything needs to be interested. So that's
how I approached him as like, hey, cap.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Skipper or whatever, we have hotspots, we have some ash
pits or whatever's been alert to double check the whole area,
and maybe we need to switch our tactics.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So that's all it was. It was a blanket attempt.
And if a captain can't pick that up.
Speaker 7 (25:12):
From me saying that and make the right choices, that's
on him, because that's not my job to overstep and
tell him what to do. He earned that rank, so
that's how we work with chain and command. I understand
that I was the only one up there. I'm an
overtime guy. I'm not a captain. I don't make the
decisions on this. We're good soldiers, so I've been tasked
(25:32):
with picking up hosts. I'm like the house guest. I'm
not going to just tell people or try to micromanage
and give commands.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
I'm not in charge.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, And that's a weakness, is that everybody's a trained
is trained not to confront or make a shine with
an idiot who's your boss? He had an idiot who's
the fire captain. I don't know who the name of
that person is at the moment, but here you want
to hear the lies that were told. Now you're at
Scott Pike, clearly hotspots and smoldering and smoking and crackling.
(26:09):
Kristin Crowley, the fire chief, said at a community meeting
on January sixteenth, we won't leave a fire that has
any hot spots. Well you did, Chief Deputy Joe Everett.
At the same meeting January sixteenth, the fire was dead out.
If it is determined that was the cause, that would
be a phenomenon. Chief Deputy Joe Everett, I guess we
(26:31):
have a phenomenon. I am Battalion Chief Mario Garcia. Firefighters
had told him about the smoldering ground in the hot rocks,
according to text messages that the Time saw from the
fire department, and they had texted Joe Everett, and they
(26:56):
also texted Chief Deputy Philip Flagel got ignored. Why why
this is basic firefighting? One oh one? If you or
I were standing there, we'd say, hey, that's still those
are hot coals. Hey, it's still smoking and smoldering here. Hey,
don't you have to put this out? Well? More coming up?
(27:19):
Got more clips to play more of Scott Pike.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
All right, let's continue here Los Angeles Fire Department firefighter
Scott Pike. We've been playing clips of his deposition that
he gave. There's that massive lawsuit from Palisades homeowners over
the fire. And in the last segment we he was
making it clear in several clips that there were plenty
(27:48):
of hotspots, plenty of smoking and smoldering. It was hot
to the Dutch. He would kick some of the debris
and rocks with his boots because his gloved hand wasn't
enough to protect himself from the from the heat. And
this next clip centers around a captain telling Scott Pike
(28:08):
and the other firefighters to roll up the hoses and
get out of there. Why did they not challenge the captain? More?
Play this clip? Four?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Did you ask.
Speaker 7 (28:22):
The captain why he hadn't directed other firefighters to mop
up the area better as you put it.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
No, because you don't question the captain.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
I just went back to work picking up hoose awaiting
new orders.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Did you ever get new orders?
Speaker 7 (28:36):
Sir?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
And a lot of guys that were there that day.
Speaker 7 (28:38):
It was the second so post holiday, I was already
working overtime because nobody else wanted to work it.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So a lot of people were like, let's just get
this hose picked up. That was the sentiment. I was feeling, like,
we have orders.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
This is why I never work well with people often
you find out, certainly not here in this moment, but
I've worked for a lot of idiots and you have
to question them. You know, the smartest people don't get
to be in charge all the time. So you have
a captain and he's got visible smoldering and smoking going
(29:13):
on hot rocks, and the captain is saying, roll up
the hoses and get out of here. Now that doesn't
cut it. Well, he's a captain here in that rank.
You know, you can't question the captain. Those are exactly
the people you have to question because they're stupid and
they have power. That's a bad combination or they're lazy
and they have power, or they got some kind of
(29:35):
agenda that they're not telling. I cannot imagine why a captain,
if he's being told by his firefighters that hey, we've
got a bad hotspots smoldering situation here, he wouldn't say, well,
let's keep working at it until it's completely out. Why
would that be? What possible reason would there be? Here's
(29:55):
another clip. Scott Pike says it still way.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
I haven't really spoken much on it because it kind
of sits heavy with me that nobody listened to me.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I felt like I got kind of blown off a
little bit, and.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
I haven't seen anybody step up and take responsibility.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
None of my leaders, none of the city leaders, nobody.
Speaker 7 (30:15):
I saw something, I said something, and to my best ability,
I felt like we could have done more. It's not
the point in my career where there's a lot of
stuff that people don't listen to us. Okay, you can
probably see what's going on in the whole.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
City, so well, that's the way of the world. People
had management often are not the brightest bulbs, and you
don't know why they do what they do. You don't
know why they're compromised that they've got something else going on,
or sometimes you just flat out stupid. Uh, let's go
to the next clip. Pike says he didn't see anybody
(30:49):
else putting out hotspots.
Speaker 8 (30:51):
Did you ever see anyone else that day extinguishing any smokers?
You know, sir, in your experience, all of those are
couple of rekindling.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (31:03):
The distance between the X where you saw those smokers
and where we see this yellow dot label Palisades fire origin.
Do you have any basis to give me any estimate
as to how far that is? Two to three hundred
feet and your experience, can an ember blow two to
three hundred feet?
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yes, sir, And yeah, that's a lot of what happened.
The embers started blowing much farther than that the night
of the second fire, the day of the second fire. Finally,
let's close out for now. Scott Pike never interviewed for
any after action report.
Speaker 8 (31:42):
Did anybody ever come to interview you in connection with
an after action report for the Lockman fire?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Oh, sir, I thought that was kind of weird.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
I feel like an accurate report would have involved interviewing
people who are actually on the scene that day. I'll
go ahead and say I saw some stuff that didn't
line up with what I saw coming out from my
leaders ATF.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
This ATF report was seventy six pages long. Do you
know how many pages there was on the Lochman fire?
Do you know? Tell me one?
Speaker 7 (32:12):
So here we sit in this room with all these
hundreds of thousand dollars and staffing and everything like that
right now, and what are we talking about the Lochman fire?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So we all know that the.
Speaker 7 (32:24):
Investigation, interviews and everything could have been done better, right,
that's why we're all here.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, well who do we have? We have a bunch
of clowns running the fire department. Christian Crowley followed, well
what do we have? Heini Moore? Now? And in between
we had Vie Aueva. So we had three clowns in
a row and their job was to cover up and
lie for Karen Dash and they did. On the after
action report, nobody talked to Scott Pike. He what's what
(32:55):
the other firefighters? He didn't see other firefighters putting out
the hotspot are joining him to confront the captain. I
know it was New Year's weekend. Everybody wanted to go
home ball games to watch, but you sign up for this.
You know, we're told to think that you guys are sacrificing,
putting your lives in danger. Well, in the moment where
(33:18):
it mattered, nobody would pipe up and say no, we
shouldn't leave, And somebody should have made this public. Somebody
should have made it public in the moment and said, hey,
the hotspot is still going on because we were listening
to constant warnings about the dangerous winds and the dangerous fire,
and none of these firefighters spoke up, and none of
(33:40):
them would challenge the captain. And how dumb is the captain?
And how deceitful are all these fire chiefs that we've
run through. Ronnie Vow and a van Ueva and himI
Moore and Kristin Crowling. Nobody on our side, Nobody on
the side of the Palisades homeowners. Everybody just shut up
and they went home. Come back. We're going to talk
(34:01):
with Carl Demyo, the Republican assemblyman. It looks like the
California Voter ID initiative is going to make it to
the ballot. They got the signatures. Debor Mark live in
the KFI twenty four our newsroom. You've been listening to
The John Cobelt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI AM six forty from three to
(34:23):
six pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 5 (34:28):
App KFI Am six More stimulating talk
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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