How To Do Police Work When The Police Won't

Today we sit down with investigative journalist Billy Jenson to discuss the mysterious death of Robert Fuller, the problems with policing and how to investigate when you can't trust the cops.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything So don't don't do well. Hello, and

(00:22):
welcome back to the Worst Year Ever, the podcast where
we talk about the worst year ever. The one is
good year, still very bad. They didn't fix it? All right? Well,
I'm gonna call our mechanic and have him jiggle the
handle of the year. Let's just pull out the engine

(00:44):
and blow on it a little bit and see if
that helps you. Try it. We'll try a few things.
I'm Katie. Sorry, I I'm Cody Johnston. I'm also Cody Johnston.
That's true. It might be got a conflicting facts here. UM.
Today we have an interview for you guys, UH with

(01:05):
Billy Jensen, the investigative journalist crime solver guy. You might
have first become aware of him, UM as he he
helped finish Michelle McNamara's book I'll Be Gone in the Dark,
which was all about the Golden State killer, UM and

(01:26):
brought that to national attention. UM. And he has done
quite a lot of his own work and solved a
bunch of crimes. And uh, we connected over the Robert
Fuller case. UM, and we'll get into that case in
our conversation. But we're really grateful that he took the

(01:47):
time to speak with us because he he has a
very unique perspective about working with the police and what
defunding the police means. Um, uh from perspective that I've
heard talked about, which which I appreciated. Yeah, I can't
wait to uh play the interview that we have finished already.

(02:10):
Let's do it. Let's do this. Let's go back in
time to the interview that we just minutes ago. How
do we have to do to go back in time?
Some sort of some sort of sound. Oh my god,
let our listeners know that we're we've returned to the
past in order to conduct an interview. Just do it
and get it over with. Did you do it? Yeah?

(02:36):
Do you not hear it? I was definitely doing it, alright.
I was doing something that wasn't as wet as the
time machine noises normal. We are there, we go, there
we go. That's the time machine. I had to tickle
the handle to get to work on that note. Here's
Billy Jensen, a real professional. Hi Billy, thanks for joining

(03:01):
us today. Um, why don't we get started by, you know,
having you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us
about the work that you do, so listeners know why
they should respect everything that you say. Understood. Yeah, So
I'm a I'm a crime investigative journalist. I've been doing
it for two decades now, and um, I would focus

(03:26):
exclusively on unsolved murders. And the problem with unsolved murders is, yeah,
you try to solve them, but you usually never do,
so you're writing stories at no endings. I got I
got fed up after a while, and uh, you know,
my day job turned into from a newspaper editor to
being sort of like the digital guy at newspaper companies,

(03:46):
where I would be the one that would know how
to bring in viewers to the websites. And I was
watching a video of a man being attacked on the
street in Chicago and he gets punched out, is lying
on the side while on the on the crosswalk, and
then a cab rolls over his chest and kills And

(04:09):
I said, there was really great video, great in terms
of being able to identify who the perpetrator was. But
some two months after I had watched that, they still
hadn't hadn't done it. And I said, why haven't they
done it? And had something clicked and just said, because
nobody's nobody's watching the news anymore, nobody's um watching reading
newspapers anymore. So I took it upon myself to try

(04:31):
and catch him, and I did. I did. I was
able to get him, so, uh, you know, using social
media and using a variety of different techniques and ah,
you know, that sort of set me on another kind
of path, And that was three years ago. And that
set me on another kind of path of kind of
trying to that was four years ago, actually of trying

(04:52):
to um work any kind of like skills that I
might have in investigating and social media to help solve
murders and find missing persons and find find fugitives. Yeah.
And I was looking at your website a little bit.
You've solved a lot of cases, Yeah, solved or help solved. Yeah, Yeah,

(05:15):
I mean there's definitely you know, I can it's a
needle in the haystack when you're looking for a person
and you just have a blurry image on a video
and it's a needle in a haystack, and then I've
got to go and and find that needle. But I
do know then that you know, they've got obviously build
up enough for the for a case on that person.
But but yeah, no, it's been about ten so far

(05:37):
and one missing person and one murder fugitive. So wow.
So Billy and I connected over the Robert Fuller case.
For those of you who don't know, Robert Fuller was
a twenty four year old black man who was found
hanging from a tree across from Palmdale City Hall on

(05:58):
June tenth. I believe UM police in the area immediately
called it a suicide to the press before conducting any
kind of an investigation, which at best is a wildly
negligent thing to do at any point, but especially during
our current political climate. UM. Many of our listeners know
that I've been following this case really closely and been

(06:19):
looking for ways to use this platform to amplify the story,
and and Billy has been digging in and doing his
own investigative work. And UM, I was hoping that you
could talk to us a little bit about what you
have been doing, anything that you've been learning updates on
the case. Yeah, so it's like you said, it happened
on Wednesday. UM, nobody outside of don't nobody even in

(06:44):
Palm Down, New But UM on Friday. That I believe
is when I think Kim Kardashian tweeted out at it
and a bunch of other people just saying, what the
hell his teacher um direct message me on Instagram and
said I was his teacher. He was a great kid.
Can you please look into this. I turned on the
news and wanted to find out what was going on,

(07:06):
and turned on the news. That's an old expression. I
went on the Internet, and I went to the newspaper
Carrier and the evening edition was out, so and I
heard them say there were no cameras in the area.
And as soon as I heard that, I wanted to
call bullshit. So I went to I went to Google

(07:29):
Maps and said, where the hell is Palmdale. I was like, oh,
it's It's an hour and a half away during during
rush hour, at least from Los Angeles. So I drove
up and the press conference had just ended where they
had said that, and they had said it earlier as well.
There were maybe like ten twenty people in the park.
So this was a park where he was found. It
was like a city hall park. So I walked past

(07:52):
the tree where he was found, where the a memorial
was starting to take shape. And then I within five
minutes saw one camera the Whispering Palms apartment building, and
then I saw another camera on Whispering Palms. Then I
walked around to another place I saw a ring camera.
Then I saw, um what was probably our best bet,

(08:12):
which was a camera on a in the window, but
it was facing directly towards the tree fifty yards away
at um at a at a digital U a studio,
a photography studio so called Oho eight, And I thought,
and I thought, you know what, They're gonna have the
best bet because if it's a photographer who probably knows cameras,

(08:34):
and the camera looked good. So I just took pictures
of those and did a video and just said, you're
you're lying to us. Uh, you know, this is not
a matter of um me knowing what happened or anything.
I'm just saying that you are lying to us. And
as we kept going, it's just looking at it from
a public relations perspective. Even if you're a town and

(08:58):
a black man is found hanging in for of city
hall during the biggest civil revolution in our lifetimes, why
would you even try to to quote unquote bay the
story which they did there was nothing about it on
social media. They were looking for two days after he
was found. They were looking for a owner of a

(09:19):
dog on their social media and they also sharing pictures
of snacks that they have. Yeah, and and there was
nothing about it. Also, I'm not going to give the
Antelope Valley UH News a pass because they ran with
the story that it was allegedly a suicide too and
didn't even question it. You know, it's one thing to

(09:41):
call allegedly in there, but no you question that. And
they nobody was doing the right thing. And I wanted
to really just sort of amplify. And when I was
up there, I started taking and people were asking me
what I was doing. And as the crowd started getting
bigger and bigger, and then of people started. There was
a woman with a with her her daughter, and she

(10:03):
was going around taking pictures and then we would share
them with each other and so and it wasn't as
those It was also the areas leading up, the roads
leading up to it. And my biggest thing was about
the police department them lying literally lying. Um that's what
Brian Shaefer said that there were no cameras. So then

(10:24):
that night, you know, I was I had tweeted all this,
all these things out. The mayor of Palm Dale writes me, No,
they said there were no cameras in the park, not
around the park, and I said no, and I sent
him the the video of him saying in the area.
And then he I think he must have realized that

(10:46):
he had screwed up. And then he deleted his account.
And then I was like, where'd you go? And then
I wake up the next morning and he sent me
a letter. He's replied to me with a letter of
them sending a letter to the Attorney General asking for
outside assistance and an independent investigation, throwing the sheriff's department

(11:08):
under the bus. So he he chose a side. Then,
you know, he decided, I gotta be on the right
side of this. I can't be with the police. I'm
gonna I'm gonna be with you know, trying to call
with an independent investigation. I mean, good on him, But
then I asked him, I said, why are you just
replying this to me? Why is this not up on
your main feed? And he replied that he doesn't really

(11:28):
know Twitter that well, but who really does? Yeah, exactly
at old Chestnut. So you went around and you talked
to some of the businesses yourself correct. Yeah. So I
went back up on Friday, a week from when I
had gone up and uh the first time, and I

(11:49):
just wanted to canvass all the businesses to see because
nobody was answering the phone. Uh, So I wanted to
call and see, you know, personally call and see, hey,
you know, have the police gone there. I talked to
seven businesses. Only two of them said the police had
come there. Um. One was the State Farm Agency who

(12:10):
was a former cop who said that they asked him
and his cameras had been broken. The other was a
auto body type place that was really kind of far away,
and they said yes immediately, like just like yo, yeah
they were here. Yeah like that. Every place else the
oho a place um which I'll get to in a second,

(12:31):
because that was our best chance. But there was like
a Mama's Fished place, a seat Mamba sea Food I
think it was called, which is right on the closest intersection.
There's a pawn shop next to that. No, they hadn't
been asked. Still haven't heard from Whispering Palms, you know,
asked a bunch of other places, and you know when
somebody goes, say when a person goes missing, or like

(12:55):
during the hanogram investigation in Charlottesville, when um, she went missing,
uh and then wound up she wound up being murdered.
You go to every business that even isn't even around
um where she was last seen. You go to like
you know, you do like a block search and a
grid search, and then you try to find anything that

(13:16):
might be So what you'd be looking for is is
Robert Fuller walking alone? Is Robert Fuller walking alone with
a bag or a rope or something? Is somebody following him? Then? Um,
is he encountering people? So so you get a sense
of of what might have been happening. And they did
none of this. And unfortunately, the best shot that we

(13:37):
would have had is the oh show a UM Digital
photography studio. They were not asked, and they also wiped
their footage, they told me within twenty four hours. So
and that's just a matter of probably because they have
a good it's probably because they have a good camera, UM,

(13:58):
and it eats up a lot of hard drive space,
you know, so it's not there. It's not their fault
because they weren't Nobody even knew they didn't even know,
you know that was something was going on, and that
is the police department's fault. And uh, I can't. I

(14:18):
can't sit there and say I have no idea what
happened with Robert Fuller, whether whether you know he was
murdered or whether he decided to take his own life.
But I do know that the police department did a
really piss poor job of investigating, did a really piss
poor job of of messaging, and then lied about it.

(14:40):
They could they could have said, you know, they could
have the amount of overtime they've probably had to pay
their officers now for all the protests. This could have
been five hours of work collecting this footage and putting
it out there and saying, yes, we have footage of
him walking by himself. People would still question it because

(15:00):
it might have been five minutes before or something like that.
But they still could have had that and they didn't
do it. And it's just it's it's just at best,
it's it's horrible police work. Let's just put to you
that way. Yeah, like horrible, horrible, horrible police work. Absolutely,
And I think important to note when discussing this case

(15:22):
the situation is the fact that Palmdale, Lancaster area. UM
absolutely does have a history of white supremacy, of the
history of white supremacy the sheriff's department. There was literally
a neo Nazi gang and not very far away in

(15:43):
Lynn Lynnwood, UM that was made up of nothing but
sherriff's deputies together. Everything you say, best case scenario, this
is terrible. Worst case scenario. It's something more sinister. But

(16:05):
at the very least you would think, during this specific
point in time it's cultural revolution, you would do your
due diligence and cover the very basic steps that need
to be covered. UM. Another thing they didn't even do.
Sorry to cut you off, well, please tell us all
the things. Malcolm Harsh was found hanging UM two weeks prior,

(16:28):
ten days prior in Rosemond, a little bit aways, you know,
sixty miles away, fifty miles away. They didn't even call
that agency uh TO to share notes or whatever. And
that's the thing that I constantly I am you know.
And it turns out that there was video of that
and the family had seen it and they they have
agreed that it was UM, it was death by suicide.

(16:50):
But you know, that's something that I am constantly harping
on police departments is because they never ever talked to
each other. We have seventeen thousand different law enforcement agencies,
and you know, our ability to solve crimes is based
on this idea that nobody has cars or trains or
planes or anything, and people just you know, ride horses.

(17:13):
That's entirely how we think about how we solve crimes
in America, and we're not you know, like when we
start talking about the ideas of of defunding the police,
I want to defund the police because not only to
um to try to dismantle the systemic racism and everything.
The thing that I've been asking for for so long

(17:35):
is better investigative skills and better investigative uses. And you know,
we're not crushing it when it comes to solving crimes.
We sell homicides, less than one percent of sexual assaults
lead to a felony conviction. You know, we can do
a hell of a lot. So anybody that might like
true crime and is wondering way to fund the police
who's going to catch the murderers? We can do a

(17:55):
hell of a lot better. Yeah, yeah, I definitely wanted
to touch on that because you you work closely with
police departments or detectives. I would assume in the course
of your work, and you're right, a very a small
percentage or not enough crimes get solved. And when people
talk about pushback against defunding the police or police abolishment,

(18:16):
they say like, oh, well, what about the bad guys,
what about the serious crimes. You're right, we're not We're
not too doing too great as is, and there needs
to be some significant reform. Yeah, yeah, yeah, take away
all of the the minutia, uh that ruins people's lives,
like the drug possession, arrests and and convictions. All of

(18:40):
this time that we're spending on these small crimes, that
takes up of what the police are doing. Uh, you know,
everything from you know, being a crossing guard or doing
traffic or or watching out when they're there's so many things,
you know, finding lost dogs, all this, all these things
that people don't understand because you know what, you don't

(19:02):
see it on TV. You know, if cops was real,
it would be boring as hell because guys would be
you know, changing tires on highway for they would be
doing so many things that changing tires by the ways
of training day reference but that they have, but they
they would do so many things that are not like

(19:23):
you're wondering why why does a copan need to do this?
And that's what defending the police comes down to. What
I also want to do is use this as an
opportunity to say, hey, we could know because I work
with a lot of police here, but I also work
a lot of families, and the families when they hear
of victims, and when the families here defund the police,
they they they go nuts because a lot of the
families they're they're looking if they want more resources. And

(19:45):
what I try to explain them is that this needs
to change because it's not been working. Now. I mean
that there's a reason why your loved one, Um, the
case is still open, and it's because the resources are
not being allocated in a in a in a way
because you might hear three billion dollar budget for the
l A. L A Police Department, but you know how

(20:05):
much of that is really really going to solving serious
crimes and it's not that much, right, Um, there's another
aspect to this story that happened. UM. I think it
was about less than a week after Robert Fuller was found,
his brother Terron damal Boone, his half brother was killed

(20:31):
by the L A P. D Uh in a shootout
of some sort or as as it's been described. I
have not seen very much information on this. There has
seems to be the story seems confusing. You look at
social media, you look at different reporting on it. There
was a vague reference to him investigating his brother's death

(20:53):
on his own. There is also talk about him kidnapping
somebody and holding her hostage. Um. The police say that
he got out of his car and fired at them,
but from what I believe, he was found in the
car and was killed through the window of the car. UM.
I'm not saying any of this for fact because I'm
I'm confused by it. Also, they seem to be lying

(21:17):
about a lot of stuff, so maybe it's hard to
like that makes it difficult to trust them. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, I'm just curious if you have any information
on that or any thoughts or insights to to share.
The story that has been released by the police, which

(21:38):
you know the news has reported, is that he had
apparently Um had kidnapped his girlfriend for six days. This
is again, this is what the police are saying, and
there was also maybe like a domestic violence charge against

(21:59):
him as well. They they she was able to escape.
She went to the police, They got a warrant, They
followed him. This is l A Sheriff's They followed him
into Kerrent County and then um, they surrounded him. Now
I have no idea what is going on with this case,

(22:19):
but I will say this man's brother had just been
found hanging in a park. The police weren't doing anything.
Then he gets surrounded by three apparently plainclothes cops in
an unmarked cars with guns drawn, and he gets out
and starts shooting. That's what That's what they're telling us.
That's what they're telling us. Cops do not have their

(22:42):
body cams on the woman was There was a woman
in the car with him that also got shot. Um,
and a child in the car. Okay, if you're going
to be shooting at a guy in a car, sometimes
you're gonna hit a kid and another lady. That's gonna happen.
If you're firing wildly at a car, Yeah, that's a
risk you just gotta take. I guess if you're going

(23:05):
to shoot at a car with a person in it.
But it was who was the woman then it was not.
It was somebody else. Yeah, it was not. I've heard
that it might have been an ex girlfriend. I don't know. Okay,
it's all very uh confusing and strange. Uh, you know,
I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I
think it's also really important to note that this is

(23:29):
this is odd and within a week of each other,
this this huge response to his his half brother, and
again the body cams not being on. Um, there's ring
footage that has been circulating online about it that does
not sound like he got out of his car and
fired at them. But who are we to know. I

(23:51):
don't know for a fact, um, just sharing the stuff
that I've been reading about. Yeah, it's definitely something that again,
it's something that they want to They tried to get
ahead of that one, you know, by saying, and what's
what's the one way you're going And it very well
might be true. But the one way that you're going
to get the public against somebody is by putting a

(24:12):
domestic violence charge against them, you know. So, um, again,
very well might be true. I'm not sure. I have
no idea, but they were very quick to put that
story out there and say this is the reason why
we were looking for him. So that definitely tamped um
any kind of activism that you might have seen on
social media about that, um, you know, but it's still

(24:36):
it's a very there's a lot of like too many
strange coincidences, especially considering like what I said, all right,
I'm sucking, I'm going up there. A lot of people
started DM me me saying, like, tell me about Antelope
Valley and the the history of racism up there. You know,
they had blocked um um people of color from Section

(24:58):
eight housing, I believe, and I think the police were
complicit in that at one point. So there's there are
stories about that. And you know, when we met in
person for the first time, we were up for the
we went up to March for Juneteenth slash Robert Fuller.
They were going to do it in Palmdale, but then
they moved it to Lancaster so everybody would be in Lancaster.

(25:22):
And then there was a rumor that the clan was
going to show up in Lancaster, and that was you know,
what did you think of that? Because you know, I
was watching from towards the back once we got to
the park, and I noticed some things that were interesting.
What did you What did you see when you were there? Um,

(25:44):
I don't know that. I was pretty immersed in watching
the speakers when I was there. I will say that
the time the day before I was up there as well,
and I can a test firmly that there were some
very unsettling people lingering around in big white trucks, uh,

(26:05):
with the engines running. Uh, you know, big white men
threatening lee flashing the lights every so often. You can
attest to that. Um. And then towards the end of
the gathering on June teeth, Uh, there was a big
tone shift. Uh. You know, things started to be agitated

(26:26):
and they ended the rally early. Um. But I I
didn't observe much there. I know that you and a
couple of people were documenting cars that were driving through.
Yeah you know. So yeah, like you said, there are
a couple of scuffles because people listen, People were on edge.
You know, people are thinking. You know, and when I

(26:46):
say clan, I'm not saying that. I don't think there
was going to be you know, it was more white supremacists.
It's more sort of white supremacist biker gang types, I think,
is what we're thinking. Um, but there was the clan
was mentioned. So you know what what happened was is
that the Clams supposed to show there at seven. I
think we we started at five, the Clams supposed to
show it seven. So I I UM kicked back um

(27:09):
with an organizer from l A and we were just
watching everything, and like we sort of started seeing like
a couple of you know, people started showing up that
we're kind of like on the outskirts, just like looking
around and we're talking about these are people that part
of the BLM movement or black men. UM, just wanting
to see I want to make sure like everything was
gonna be okay. Right around seven o'clock. The one thing

(27:30):
that I noticed is is that so from five o'clock
to seven, of all the cars that passed, there were
maybe two people, two white guys in the cars. And
the way that the park is situated is that it's
almost like a dead end. There's no real there's no
reason to pass by it. It's not even a shortcut.
It's slow out of the way, not even a shortcut. Yeah.

(27:54):
Once seven o'clock hit, the cars became increasing ea white,
and it was it went from maybe you know, five
pcent white to white, there was something there and whether
they were just going to check it out, huh we
heard this was going on or whatever, or who knows,

(28:17):
a lot of trucks, a lot of you know, groups
of guys in there, whatever, UM that might have just
been wondering what was going on, or they might have
been trying to post up and see if there was
a bunch of other people there and then they would
get out and do something. And then they would you
would see them, and some of them actually drove through
and apparently I was trying to see if there was

(28:38):
a way out, but they drove through. Then they drove
back around, and we would see that. We would see
people like drive through and drive back around and nobody
was really even noticing them. So me and this one
organizer n see, we started taking pictures just in case,
you know, because the threat was that they would not
do a rally, but then maybe they would you know,
do something to anybody that was walking back by themselves,

(28:59):
because we to all walk back to our cars because
we we parked the cars and the target parking a lot.
That's where it started. And Um and the organizers guy
named love Um who's a fantastic speaker by the trying
to get him on here and yeah, now he's great
and um, I think he just did an interview I
think with a yeah so and he um. And he's

(29:19):
got a connection to he's got an amazing story as well.
So uh, you know, we walked with him all the
way down the towards to the parks, so we had
to go back. Everybody had to go back and get
their cars. So everybody was walking back in groups of
twos or threes. Yeah, keeping ring. I I really admired
what he how he is organizing there, and that's one

(29:41):
of the things that he talked about, like we don't
know if they're going to show up, but from now on,
we want a system of accountability. You don't walk by yourself,
you know. And that's the other thing that I've heard
so much at these rallies that I've been going to
over there. You know, Palm Dale, Lancaster, this is a
sundown city. If you are of color, you are not
out after sundown, especially not right now. Yeah, nothing I

(30:06):
noticed with the with the march is the first march
I've been to, in the first march that I've seen
where the police were in front of the march. The
police weren't doing anything to stop traffic. They were behind
the march, which I found very interesting. UM. I don't
know if that means if it's just bad but police
or something, but you would think because there were cars
that were coming straight at us, and there were cars

(30:26):
that were trying to make turns of everything, and there
was nobody stopping them. And then they the organizers had
to actually go out and then um and kind of
direct traffic, which didn't make sense when I was looking
up for the cars, and then I see the bird
up in the sky, and then I looked behind us,
and then there were six cop cars. Yeah, that's weird

(30:47):
to me in a way, like incompetence. Before probably as
I was walking up to that, people were gathering on
the corner by the target. UM, I would see every
minute a cop car would blare blaze, come speeding up
with their sirens blaring, and then slow down right in

(31:10):
front of the protesters and then speed up and drive away.
That happened about four or five times, UM. And then
we started marching, and then all of a sudden, there was,
like you said, six cars right behind, like trailing in
a weird way, and you know, the helicopter above circling
pretty low. It felt a little ominous. And then when

(31:32):
you got to the park. But at the same time,
when we got to the park, I noted that there
was a ton of cops tucked away. They were not
they were not harassing the actual rally in the park. No,
the cops were probably I would say, accorded to a
half mile away. They were kind of stationed up, stationed there,

(31:54):
not in any place there would be able to stop
anything if any if like the climate Big showed us there.
But maybe they're watching the entrance to the park. I mean,
I don't that was that was a strategy that they had. Um,
I'm not going to begrudge them because it's better than
than than having riot gear out there, you know. So uh,

(32:15):
you know, there was there were a couple of skirmishes
during the rally and um, but it seemed like the
organizers of the rally were able to diffuse them. And
as much as there might have been, you know, a
couple of skirmishes about people like trying to you know,
like what are you doing here or something like that,
there were ten times as many people just trying to say,
this is not what we're here for. We're here for

(32:37):
to get justice and this and that we can't be
we can't be fighting like this, which was really beautiful. Um,
and I do understand why emotions are running high and
why that's an environment for things to escalate pretty easily
together everything. Do you have any information on, uh, where

(33:07):
the investigation stands right now what they are? No, I've
got Now they're still saying, they're still not saying anything,
and uh, you would like to They tried lying, so
I guess they have to try not saying anything now. Yeah,
you'd like to think that, you know. I think what
has happened right now is that Palmdale Sheriffs, which is

(33:27):
part of the l A Sheriffs, they're they're directing everything
towards l A Sheriff headquarters, you know, so uh, and
then ell A Sheriff Headquarters is just saying no comment.
It's incredibly frustrating. I mean, there's any number of things
that could be done. We don't know what the actual
autopsy is saying. We don't know if there are forensics

(33:48):
from the rope um, from his clothing anything like that,
And I don't know what the normal time frame for
information like that is. But yeah, I mean it's and
whether they'll be using an m BacT for the rope,
which is kind of like a m BAC is a
for lack of a better term, it's like a DNA vacuum,

(34:09):
you know. And it can it can kind of when
you're dealing with fabrics and things that can kind of
suck that up and then and then collect it in
a way that you wouldn't be able to do um
if you you know, you could do it with just
getting a strand of hair or a fiber. But they're
able to um extract d NA more like skin cells
and things like that. But I don't know if they're
using one of those, I doubt it. But yeah, and

(34:34):
then and then the you know, and then there's also
a matter of you know, you can find DNA in
there that has nothing to do with crying. It could
have been somebody from the factory that made it, you know,
it could have been somebody from the store who sold it.
So but it's a tool. It is a still a
tool that needs to be used, and that's where the
manpower and and woman power needs to be made in
in these investigations and not through all of this other

(34:57):
stuff that they're doing. It's hard to feel like they're
not taking this very seriously. Um, hard not to feel
that way, Yes, I said that, right. Uh, it's just
I mean it leaves me feeling so angry and powerless
in a bit away that like, what what do we do?

(35:19):
How do we you know, how do we how do
we change this? How do we take them get them
to at least take accountability. I mean, regardless, say Robert
Fuller did commit suicide, I don't believe that at this
point in time, but say that he did, like we've mentioned,
regardless of that, this is gross, gross incompetence and how

(35:40):
they're handling and the situation. And people should lose their
jobs over this. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. I don't know how
to make that happen, you know, Yeah, no, And the
problem is it's incredibly hard to make it happen. We
can't even get guys to lose their jobs after they
literally kill somebody, uh you know that work for a

(36:02):
police department, And only one out of three Brianna Taylor
shooters has fired. So it's you know, the the issues
that are going on right now are going to have
to deal with It's one thing to say defund the police.
It's another thing to actually take on the unions, take
on the union contracts. The money that's going that that
we see, the money is going towards salaries obviously, which

(36:27):
is fine, going to pensions, you know, which is which
is a huge part of it, and overtime and that
overtime game that they all play. You know. The pension
situation is very much similar to what happened with the
US auto industry. You know, you're just you're writing a
check that you don't have that someone is not going
to cash for twenty years. It's not your administration. So

(36:48):
you accept this deal. Imagine every person that you ever
worked with at every job you've been at, Imagine them
getting of that salary, you know, and that's for the
rest of the lives. You know. That's where all this
money is going towards. That's what we mean by, you know,
defunding the police. I'm not saying take away all their pension,
but I'm saying that that there needs to be something better,

(37:12):
because if we're spending over of the police of the
entire city budget on on policing, uh, there needs to
be something better than than what's going on right now
from an investigative standpoint, and we're not seeing and I'm
we're seeing gross incompetence right there on a I mean
just imagine this is like the one case that we

(37:33):
were looking at. What else is going on? I mean, yeah,
that's the really frustrating thing listening to all of this
and just like every step of the way either a
lie or a complete like funk up. And then just
like this is one thing in one place that people
are actually paying attention to for you know, various reasons. Uh,

(37:54):
it has been brought to like people's attention, but like
where where are the other once and what's being done there? Yeah,
I've been thinking about that a lot, a lot lately.
I mean, Brianna Taylor, all of it, go ahead, Billy,
you know, And part of me is just you know,
it's we've gotten to a point where we've gotten where

(38:16):
we've recognized the the the issue that black people have
been have been screaming about for years and years and years,
and we've finally as a society woken up to it.
I think I think we've actually gotten there. We just
have to keep up the momentum of what happens Um,
the the the black people and the relationship with the police.

(38:39):
Even though we heard about it, we sang along songs
about it, you know, but we we didn't get it. Um.
But we are not equipped now from a from a
media standpoint to cover the local stories because local newspapers
have been decimated. And so I'm not saying that they
were doing it eight before, because they weren't, but this

(39:02):
would have been a time to where that could have
that could have intersected. And uh, you know, that is
one of the things that it comes on a on
a local level. Yeah, we've got we've got so many
people covering Trump and covering national things, but it's the
local news things that are that are suffering. And it's
these kinds of stories that are that are probably happening

(39:24):
a lot across America that are not going to be told.
So that's interesting. You're right. I mean, it's hard to
rely on local news right now for variety of reasons. Decimated.
Was also a lot of conservatives that own local news organizations. Um,
there's there's a slant in the reporting. Um. And uh,
Cody and I had a guest on our other show

(39:46):
recently and we talked a lot about this about how
the twenty four hour news cycle isn't as effective as
at once. What because was because we have social media,
we have our phones, we can become citizen journalists. Uh,
we can amplify stories if we're paying attention and doing

(40:06):
it right, So we we do have that out. No, No,
it's actually almost worse sometimes if people care too much
like that. There's been so many stories going around that
I don't even want to give the details super details on,
but like it will start spreading and people will start
and they'll be like they're such and such this person

(40:27):
was abducted. You know, this crime was committed up here,
Like you need to spread the information this person was abducted,
and like here's the vehicle and it's like you trace
it back and there's no there's no photo evidence, there's
no missing person's report, there's nothing but people on Twitter
like not just sharing things, but like shaming each other
for not sharing it so that it gets shared more.
And then it's like, what what is what is this

(40:48):
based on? Whereas like do we have even have evidence
of a victim? Um? And that's that's part of what
scares me with all of these cases, is that UM
like Robert Fuller, something something we need to figure out,
like the truth here there's a real a man is dead,
possibly two and and we don't really know exactly, like

(41:10):
we don't know what happened, and we need to figure
it out. But there is such um in part because
of all of these people being allowed to kind of
grab onto whatever story is happening in this uprising are
interesting to them. Well there's this so much chaff. Yeah,
well we do. We do definitely know that two people
are dead. We just don't know. Yeah, but uh, you know,

(41:31):
that's one of the things when we see this And
what's one of the talk about this in my book
and I talked about this on on Murder Squad all
the time, is that you have to follow the rules
and um, there's an escalation part to the rules. And
the first rule is don't name names in public. We
saw this with the Boston bombing. When they put out
the pictures of the two bombers. Everybody, not everybody on readit,

(41:54):
but people on read it looked at this this kid
who had gone missing from Brown University named sa Neil Trap.
He looked a lot like the second bomber that the
kid the younger guy, and they started talking about, hey,
that could this be the guy? Could this be the guy?
And uh, you know, it turns out he had he
had he had died. He might have died by suicide.

(42:15):
We don't know, but uh, you know, they were dragging
this kid through the mud and he had nothing to
do with it. We saw it again recently, remember that
that video of the douchebag on the bicycle that was
tearing down the posters, the BLM posters that the little
kids were then kind of like assaulting the little kids too,
I think he was. And so they had an image

(42:36):
of this guy, they put it up on social and
then people start posting addresses and and and pictures and
social media profiles of the wrong people. And these people
have to go and say this isn't me. Wait a minute,
you know. The what we always say is that, you know,
send us the information, or send the police the information. Definitely,

(42:56):
if the police don't do anything within a certain amount
of time, then you go to the press. Um. You know,
but now that that window of time for me is
shrinking because I used to when I in my investigations,
I used to give them like all right, I'll give
them you know, a little bit of space for them
to do their thing. And you know, some a lot

(43:18):
of times, you know, most of the time, if I
see a good piece of of footage of a suspect,
I just put it in a folder and say, I'm
gonna check back this on a week and then I'll
do a Google search and they would have already caught
the guy. But um, that's gonna start shrinking and shrinking
now because we have no trust in the police department

(43:38):
as evidence of um, you know what happened in Palmdale,
and I think that you know, and I would not
as far as like my level of trust in the
police department. It was always on a case by case basis.
I could tell pretty quickly whether somebody was A wanted
to work with me, b was was pretty incompetent and

(43:58):
they don't know what they're doing, or she was like
willing to be like, yeah, let's let's let's work on
this together because we're completely lost on this case. And
and we'll try anything. And you know, now it's a
it's it's coming to the forefront. It's it's a it's
a little liberating to be able to say it because
I wasn't you know. I didn't say it before. Um,

(44:18):
I was not covering things that we're dealing with systemic
racism that I thought, but I really was right, right,
Oh man, you guys have more questions I wanted to.
I just want to hear others, like stories of things
that you've solved, but that as much time as you are,

(44:43):
if there's something a good story, yeah, I mean, I
think it's it's fascinating to hear you talk about this work.
I think, you know, you know this, maybe you're kind
of a favorite among people that are true crime junkies
and and citizens lose want to you know, put together
and piece together stories, and so it is fascinating to

(45:05):
hear you talk about this and in your process and
if there's any other stories you want to share, because
I think that this resonates for a lot of people,
or even anything that like upon reflections, uh, with what's
happening now, you like you view it in a different context.
You know, absolutely, I think that because of what's happening now,

(45:27):
we're being what we're we're doing now is we're actually
capturing the events on camera because everybody has the camera.
Everyone's going a TV studio in their in their pockets,
so people know instinctively to go to the camera if
they're if they're around seeing it. Now, a lot of
crimes happen when there's nobody around with the camera, but
we're doing that. The thing is we do that, we

(45:49):
put it up there. Then there's the you know, there's
a news cycle in social media that's even faster than
the news cycle in national media and mainstream media. So
you might be able to um catch somebody doing something
bad on camera, whether it's a police officer or somebody else.

(46:11):
It's that follow up and that's the thing that we
that we need the news media to do, is the
follow up and do the follow up work. And it's hard,
you know, it's and it's it's a matter of of
you know, the reason why this happened. We've seen the
police murder black men on video before. The reason why

(46:33):
it happened is because we've never seen it, um happen
over such a long period of time, over the eight
minutes and forty six seconds, and be so visceral, and
also have no distractions because of the pandemic. And everybody
finally was able to get slapped in the face with
this I would also say we immediately knew about it,

(46:57):
m made immediately made national headlines, whereas Brianna t learned
that wasn't a household name. The the urgency of her situation,
the the immediacy, the rage of the community has abetted
by the time everybody else caught up. But yes, please continue. Well,
it's it's also because that was video, because there were
somebody there taking it and then they can post it.

(47:19):
So that's that's the key. But then it's just you know,
going that and then it's just the follow up, and
the follow up is the outrage and and yes, the
most important thing is getting it on video. Unfortunately that's
what we have to do. But and there you get
the outrage and then you can get the swell of
support potentially. But it's the follow up. And it's the
follow up that we need um our journalists to be doing,

(47:42):
is to follow up that we need the police departments
to be doing, and um and battling these unions because
you know, these police chiefs, a lot of them, I'm
not giving them excuses, but their hands are tied with
the police union and the contracts that they that they
signed with the police union, and those police unions will
take take, take as much as they can get, and uh,
you know it's just like you know, the police union,

(48:06):
they give it this way. You know, people were you know,
the big story from yesterday, the FBI investigated the news
that was found in Bubba Wallis's garage. They said it
was it was a pull for a garage door. Fine,
it did look like a noose, all right. A week
prior to weeks prior, the New York City Police Detectives

(48:27):
Union tweeted out that three officers were deliberately poisoned by
a shake shack. So there's a there's a difference there.
One said there was a noose found hanging and these
were gear heads. Another were I don't know, detectives. And

(48:47):
they went out and said deliberately poisoned and then they
had to backtrack and also they deleted that tweety you know. So, uh,
there's a lot of there's a lot of things going
on with those police unions that um, that is that's
going to be the struggle right now when it comes
to all of this, all of these things with the police.

(49:09):
But um, you know, for people that want to do
you know, the biggest thing is taking the taking the
photos when you're seeing something wrong, absolutely, and then it's um,
you know, doing that, doing that follow up work, sending
it to the right people doing the doing the investigations yourself.
We're getting we're distributing the news on a lot of
different places, but there's not like, you know, how many

(49:32):
people are gonna do a FOI request, you know how
many people are going to be doing this or that,
you know, and it's just that's Yeah, that's where it
comes down to when it comes from citizen journalism and
listen because thinks they shouldn't freaking have to another job,
but it's turning into our jobs now. We've made it
our jobs, you know, because of uh, we can't trust
you know that we've either decimated the media and quite frankly,

(49:54):
we couldn't trust the media because they weren't covering these
cases the way that they should have. Yeah, it's interesting.
I I believe I shared this with you last week
at the at the Juneteenth rally. But earlier last week
I was talking about this with the guys here, Robert
and Cody and Sophie, and I was talking about how
you said that there was all these these cameras after

(50:15):
the police had said, oh, you know, there weren't any,
and I think it was Cody that was like, you
should go talk to them to make sure the police
approached them. And I was like, it's been five days.
I'm sure they have at this point. I'm sure they have.
And they hadn't. They fucking hadn't. Yeah, even the even

(50:36):
the the cop said it was three or four days ago,
which meant that was Friday. I had got up and
showed the cameras on the Friday previous, so he had
been talked to maybe Monday or Tuesday. It's not a
huge place. It won't take that long to get there, right,

(50:58):
doing the bare minimum after so long, it's and if
you hadn't done that, they wouldn't have done that. Yeah,
and yeah, it's like knowing that kind of information, like
how valuable that information is and having that sort of
sense like you literally just heard him say that and
you're like, well, what doesn't sound right and you wouldn't
looked right, Like just having that having that extra, that
extra sense to ping your mind when you're like, wait,

(51:20):
doesn't I don't trust that? And actually I will say too.
It's just it did boggle my mind that the city
Hall did not have cameras, you know, so what and
the library and the and the fire department, I mean, yeah,
is surrounded by all of their city hubs. Um. Yeah,
it's it's in line of vision from all of the Yeah,

(51:42):
the city Hall, the fire department, the Cultural Center, the
Sheriff's department is just down the street. It's wild. It's wild. Um,
But yeah, I share that as we talk about also, yes,
we have our our cameras in our our pockets. We
can document things we can and be responsible with that
and take it to the right places. But yeah, if

(52:03):
something pops into your head like maybe this should be
looked into, you should talk to somebody. Don't just assume
that the cops have done it, you know, if there's
even Yeah, and if it's just one question, like I
could think of a question that a person could be
asked and if you can make that phone call, um,
just so you have that information to counteract a lot
you might hear later on. Yeah. Yeah, And it's a

(52:28):
matter of you know, when you hold police accountable for this,
you know it's gonna be you know, and I knew
this that it was going to make what I do
a hell of a lot harder. And I was definitely
tentative to do it because of the families, the victims
of the families that I work with, and this could

(52:49):
hurt me helping their cases. But I had to. I
had to just say, I can't, I can't sit still
for this, you mean putting your relationship with Yeah. Yeah,
if anybody now googles me and so, you know, and
and looks at my social media, they're going to see
that that I was taking. I was publicly you know,

(53:09):
taking this, uh, this department and their detectives to task.
And you know, while I would do that privately and
I would yell at detectives and stuff over the phone
and things, but I would never do it publicly because
I wanted to because for the victims families, I wanted
to maintain those those you know relationships. But uh, you know,

(53:31):
I just couldn't sit there and you know, while being
lied to and uh and this was just a small,
you know, tip of the iceberg. I mean, yeah, at
some point we have to like take a stand and
call it what it is, what we're seeing it as anyway,
And UM, I really appreciate that you did, because we
had this this conversation. Um, yeah, and maybe, yeah, maybe

(53:53):
something will come with this, but well, I'm certainly going
to continue to show up and pay attention to this,
do what I can, um, and I hope our listeners
do as well, and also pay attention to the stories
that are happening in your town because they are happening. Yeah,
the local stuff doesn't get that the attention um it
needs until until it does. Um. Sometimes it bubbles up

(54:14):
at the top, but no, and the people who um, yeah,
it's sustained attention is the only thing that actually brings
any of this to a positive resolution. Like if you're
wondering why things don't like like why a lot of
these you know, murders don't end in any sort of justice,
Like why nothing's ever solved, Some of that has to
do with the fact that people lose interest and move

(54:36):
on and it burns out. And yeah, like we were
talking about, like when are the when is somebody should
get fired if anything, uh, for the incompetent way they've
dealt with this case. Yeah, and that one that will
happen if protest after protests keeps happening and keeps happening
and they keep demanding fire somebody. You fuck this up, Um,

(54:58):
and that's how it happens. Yeah, Billy, Uh, do you
wanna tell our listeners where they can find you a
line plug any projects stuff like that? Sure? Yeah, so,
Uh you can find me at Billy Jensen on both
Twitter and Instagram. I'm on two podcasts, one called Jensen
and Holds the Murder Squad with UH with Golden State

(55:21):
killer investigator Paul Holes, and we we do a lot
of the things that we're talking about here. We're trying
to solve cold cases using the public's help. So if
you're interest to check that out. I'm also on a
podcast called The First Degree, which are more adjudicated cases
being told from somebody who's one degree away from the
perpetrator or the victim. Um. I'll be on the I'll

(55:42):
Be Gone in the Dark UH docuseries which starts on June.
The book that Michelle McNamara, my friend who was writing
and then she passed away in the middle of it,
and me and her researcher, Paul Haynes helped finish it
so and then which led to helping solve that case.
I think it led to promoting or promoting awareness, Promoting

(56:05):
awareness leading to more more resources leading towards the solve. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep,
and then just you know, just keep on plugging away.
My book Chased Darkness with Me just came out on paperback.
There's a new chapter about the Allenstown for the Bear
Brooke case, and um, a lot of a lot of
things in there if you want to do any kind

(56:27):
of citizen detective work. A lot of tips and how
to guys too. Awesome, that's fascinating. Thank you so much
for taking the time to chat with us. This has
been awesome. All right, Well, thank you so much for
having me. And that's it. That does it for us today.
Thanks again, Billy for joining us today. That was a
fascinating conversation. I liked it because of how it went. Yeah,

(56:50):
that's good. True. You guys can check us out online
at worst your pod on Instagram and Twitter. Uh yeah,
follow Billie. He gave you all of that information, so
I'm not going to repeat it. Yeah, we just talked
about it. Yeah you know what, bye, I hope. Yeah.

(57:15):
Do you want to plug your own plugs? Plugs? No? Okay?
You can follow Robert and I write okay on Twitter.
You can follow Katie and Cody on Twitter and Instagram
because they're adults. Katie is at Katie Stole and h
Cody is at Dr Mr Cody. We have a t
public store. That's true. Also keep wearing your face and

(57:35):
washing your hands, but also by everything everything I tried.
Worst Year Ever is a production of I heart Radio.

(57:56):
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