Failed Leadership in Pacific Palisades with Rusty Redican

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The episode delves into the profound irony faced by the Pacific Palisades community, where those who once helped the homeless now experience similar struggles. Through analysis of leadership failures and community initiatives, we uncover critical lessons that call for accountability and empathy in leadership roles.

• Discussion on Rusty Redican's career and experiences 
• Examination of leadership shifts within LAPD over the years 
• Insight into the community's efforts in addressing homelessness 
• Reflection on the consequences of leadership missteps 
• Emphasis on the importance of engaged and empathetic leadership

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Episode Transcript

Rusty Redican (00:00):
And it's tragically ironic in this
particular case, that thePacific Palisades people who put
their money and not all ofthese people we touched on, some
of the millionaires andbillionaires and very wealthy
individuals the overwhelmingmajority of people in the
Pacific Palisades are not thosepeople.
They're not very, very wealthy.
You know, they've lived therefor 60 plus years, 50 years.

(00:23):
They've lived there for 60-plusyears, 50 years.
But those people all chipped in, whether it was their time or
their money or their clothes, tobasically help homeless folks
get off the streets.
And the tragic irony is it'snow them who are finding
themselves homeless at thispoint, and that's where all of

(00:45):
these leaders that you and I aretalking about they need to jock
up do the right thing.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.

Travis Yates (01:00):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm so honored you're spendinga few minutes with us here today
and we've been trying to getthis guest on the show for a
couple of weeks now.
With all the events in SouthernCalifornia, we're excited to
have him.
We welcome Rusty Redican.
He's a retired LAPD officer, 25years of law enforcement
experience, former Marine,really active in the Pacific

(01:22):
Palisades area when he was onthe job, just recently retired
and he's been speaking on someissues about leadership, risk
management, all the things thatwe're hearing.
You may be surprised that youhaven't heard this in the
mainstream media, rusty.
How are you doing, sir?

Rusty Redican (01:37):
Hey, good, travis , thanks for having me, I
appreciate it.

Travis Yates (01:40):
Well, man, I'm so honored you're here.
We've known each other for afew years.
I know off and on on LinkedInand we've communicated there and
you did some good stuff.
I was familiar with you and youwere, I think you retired at
the Range LAPD at the ElysianPark, there at the great
facility.
Just kind of walk us throughyour career and kind of how it
progressed.
And you sat here today andwe'll talk a little bit about

(02:01):
current events.

Rusty Redican (02:03):
And you sat here today and we'll talk a little
bit about current events.
Sure, I'll try and give you theReader's Digest version.
So, son of a police officer,dad was a police officer for 33
years and I realized early onthat I wanted to follow in his
footsteps.
So after I went in the MarineCorps did what many people you

(02:25):
know in our line of work do islook for a couple of departments
that I thought kind of fit ontop of my hometown, which is
Chumpsford.
Massachusetts Sort of grew upin the Chumpsford Lowell area.
Great people out there as well.
But while I was in the MarineCorps, obviously down at Camp
Pendleton sort of had an accountto be close to Los Angeles
During the riots.
I'm just going to kind of givea quick what sort of fed me into

(02:48):
the LA area.
I was down at Camp Porno onPendleton when the riots kicked
off after the Rodney Kingverdict and from there my
buddies and I, when we had leave, would go up to LA often.
So we kind of had an idea alittle bit of what it was about.
But we got called in tobasically by our battalion

(03:11):
commander and said hey, get yourstuff and get it out on the
parade deck and we're going tobe going up to Los Angeles to
assist them in swelching theviolence that was going on.
So of course, as a young, youknow, 22-year-old yeah, that

(03:33):
wasn't lost on me that infantryMarines are now being going to
be going up to Los Angeles tosort of swelch the violence that
was going on up there, therioting.
So I'll get back to the otherstuff later, but you know that
left a mark in terms of thatcity being someplace that I
wanted to work.
It looked like it was very busy.
Yeah, um, um, I think, likeprobably most police officers,
you want to go someplace that'sthat's fairly busy that you know

(03:55):
you can make a positive impacton the largest amount of people.
So got out of the Marine Corpsand went and tested with LAPD
and was told this was in 93, wastold, hey, thanks for coming,
but you're the wrong race andthen the wrong gender.
So you know it was what it was.

(04:20):
I had a pretty good sergeantthat was in my oral interview.
That was very, very honest,took a little prying, but I was
able to get across to him.
Hey, look, I'm not looking tocomplain, but you pulled me out
into this hallway and told methat I did an amazing job and in
the same sentence, you'retelling me that I can test every
six months.
I live in Massachusetts now Ican't fly back and forth and

(04:42):
eventually he came around andsaid look I hate having to tell
you guys this, especially youmilitary guys that come here and
he was a black gentleman, so itwasn't like you know there was.
He was trying to keep it closeto his vest, but again he seemed
like a really nice guy andeventually just said look, right
now we just had the riots thatyou're trying to come in on the

(05:05):
end of and unfortunately you'llget on.
Please keep trying, but tryanother time.
And you just happen to be aquota at this point.
That is all stocked up.
So went back, ended up becomingor getting on the job with the
hometown that I grew up in,which is Chumpsford
Massachusetts, with my, thehometown that I grew up in,

(05:25):
which is ChumpsfordMassachusetts, got on that PD
and, you know, ended up makingmy way back out to Los Angeles
and got out here in 2002, justafter 9-11.

Travis Yates (05:38):
So and that was sort of the beginning of my LAPD
career.
Yeah, you know, I test.
I was tested in 93 as well andI heard similar stories where.
There's lots of stories outthere and I think they were
generally right.
You just have to keep trying.
Completely different storytoday, of course, when it comes
to recruiting, but they had aton of people back then.
Rusty, obviously you've got aton of experience there.

(06:02):
You constantly make commentsabout leadership and I think
it's sound.
What was the biggest shift yousaw in leadership in general
from when you came on LAPD tonear the end of your career?
What was the shifts you saw?
I mean, I spent the same yearsin law enforcement, so I think I
know what you're going to say.
But law enforcement's dealingwith a lot of hurdles today,
recruiting being one, retentionbeing another.

(06:23):
But let's just talk aboutleadership and lean into that.
What would you say would be thepositive attributes in
leadership when you came on andwhat kind of happened to that as
your career progressed?

Rusty Redican (06:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a great topic,
obviously.
I think it's probably the topicwith respect to law enforcement
.
I think the leadership aspectis and when I say leadership you
know in this case I think we'retalking about management.
I know you've talked about thisbefore as well Leadership is a
little bit different.
The actual leadership could bethe police officer, one which is

(06:55):
a probationary officer all theway up to the chief of police.
I mean, just because somebodyhas shiny lapels doesn't make
them a leader, and this is kindof the.
I have some self-inflictedwounds at LAPD, but also most
people that I've worked for knowthat when they have folks like
me working for them, things getdone.

(07:17):
So I think the biggest thing Isee one of the major problems
with management I see one of themajor problems with management
is I don't believe there's everbeen a larger disparity in
actual applicable experience onthe street in dealing with
interhuman aggression and ortrue community policing.

(07:39):
They like to throw that out alot.
I think a lot of departments do, and it's for good reason.
We worked for them and thatnever was lost on me.
So I think right now and Ithink it's been just slowly
digressing in terms of theleadership component is there's
such a huge disparity betweenthe experience of the officer on

(08:02):
the street and, unfortunately,folks that decided to, just, you
know, keep on checking boxesuntil they got to the point
where they had their name on thedoor.
Now I don't think that's all.
Clearly, we have some amazingtrue leaders on lapd um.
Sometimes they squeak through,but overall they would have to

(08:22):
agree that and this is the partthat might hurt some feelings,
but it really should only hurtthe feelings of those that this
covers which is for LAPD, and Ican say that I've seen it in
other departments I thinkthere's an institutional
inbreeding of ineptitude that isaccepted depending on who you

(08:43):
know, what sort of box you check, and that has to change Because
ultimately, if you have peoplethat don't know what they're
doing at the patrol level and orthe operational detective level
, then ultimately you havesomebody in a position that has
to make decisions that they justdon't have the aptitude to make
.
And we could probably get intothis too.

(09:04):
But you take a look at whathappened in Los Angeles the last
couple of nights and that is avery good sort of snapshot of
what it is that I'm talkingabout and that you brought me on
here for today.

Travis Yates (09:18):
Yeah, I think that's this little unwritten
rule nobody likes to talk aboutas I think you nailed it, rusty
where you can be very successfulin the upper ranks in law
enforcement but not have a lotof tactical skills or tactile
skills to actually do the job.
There's really a separationthere and that creates obviously
a lot of issues, mainly beingmission creep and not being

(09:42):
mission focused.
We've seen a lot of lawenforcement today.
I mean, if you get away fromyour mission I mean just look at
the federal government rightnow what they're trying to clean
up at this very moment you getaway from your mission,
everything else goes haywire.
So I think it's safe to saythat if the chief's number one
priority is everything but crimecontrol, we got ourselves a
problem, because that should bethe priority.

Rusty Redican (10:06):
Yeah, and I think one of the major causal factors
of this problem right now isyou get people in high
management positions, whetherit's the chief of police,
assistant chief, deputy chief Iknow there's, you know there's
colonel.
There's different sort oftitles that you know different
departments and municipalitiesuse.
When you have a sheriff rightjust to use that as another sort
of comparable example that'selected in by the people do you

(10:30):
have an opportunity where youelect a sheriff who is also
perhaps incompetent but maybesays the right things?
Yes, you do.
The benefit to having anelected position is you now have
a mechanism in place that youcan replace that person in four
years if it's not an egregiousor you know they committed a
crime.

(10:50):
With respect to the chief ofpolice and I'll use actually
well, both LAPD and my previousdepartment and again, I love the
people of both departments andthe people that are leading the
department that I came frombefore LAPD.
You know they're good guys too.
Problem is, and even ChiefMcDonald, who I have a fairly

(11:12):
personal relationship in termsof knowing him off the job he's
a really nice guy and very, verycompetent.
When you have people that arevery competent but they're
hamstrung because they're at apolitical appointed position.
That's no bueno.
Now you're definitely going tobe dealing with situations where

(11:33):
decisions are not going to bemade for the number one reason
or question that should beanswered, which is does this
make my public safer?
That's the first order ofbusiness in terms of how a
manager or a leader should takea look at what they have, what
assets they're assigning tocertain problems is.

(11:55):
Does this help or does thishurt?
And when you hire or promotepeople based on skin color,
gender, pick your demographicimperative, you're definitely
hurting.
Not only are you hurting thecommunity, but you're also
hurting the people that maybefall under that same category,
that are very adept at doing thejob.

(12:17):
And we saw that.
I saw that repeatedly at LAPDand it was frustrating because
they kind of get looked at witha with an odd eye if you don't
know them.
And then you get to know themand then you're like, okay, this
person actually is verycompetent.
So I think that's the beginning.
The beginning is the pipeline ofpromotions needs to change, and

(12:39):
I would say every singledepartment should look at it.
And I know you, you, I know alot of this stuff.
I know you already know and isgoing to make sense to you very
clearly.
But if you take somebody, likeif I took you as whether you're
retired or even when you werestill on the job at your
position, given the way yourthought process works, and I

(13:00):
said, hey, look, we'd like topay your way.
Have you come on out here to LAand I'd like to use you?
And you could hire a swath ofpeople, especially with how long
people's arms nowadays withLinkedIn and other ways, and I
want you to come and help us inthe interview process of our
officers that are looking topromote to the next level.

(13:22):
Then you get somebody that isthey're not biased, they're
coming in, going oh, what arethese officers bona fides?
What have they been doing?
And then you get to see, ohokay, yeah, this person's been
playing hide and seek for twogrand a week for the past four
years.
And this person you know wehave in LAPD.

(13:42):
We have a thing called Teams 2,right person In LAPD.
We have a thing called Teams 2,right Captain Espinoza, I
believe you promoted to captainalready, so talk to Anthony
about it.
He'll go down a rabbit holewith you on it.
But, in short, it's basicallyyour resume on LAPD.
It's also where your uses offorce both critical incidents
and or standard uses of force,complaints, those sorts of

(14:06):
things, all of your training.
A lot of times with LAPD we seeit and most people from LAPD
listening to this will probablygo yeah, that's 100% spot on is,
if a person needs a paperweightto hold their teams two down,
they're definitely uppermanagement material.
If it's somebody, maybe like me, who's professionally assertive

(14:30):
I try not to.
There's been times where I'vehad to sort of check a few
people that needed it, not justfrom man to man, but most of the
time it's somebody that doesn'tquite have the foundational
skills that are required to be alaw enforcement manager and

(14:51):
that doesn't do anybody anyfavors.
So I think that's got to change.
And using that example of havingpeople come from the outside,
where a lot of departments dothat with LAPD, I've got friends
that are in the command staffand that are supervisors.
They've told me hey, I'm goingto Nebraska for a couple of
weeks helping them with theirintake or their promotional

(15:15):
process.
So I think that's somethingthat should happen across the
board.
It's tough when you get with,as you know, because you come
from a big department too.
When you have a massivedepartment, things just sort of
get lost.
And I used to hear from and Istill do guys will say well,

(15:37):
that's the way it's always been,man, you can't buck the system,
and I disagree with that.
You can buck the system if youdo it respectfully and you offer
solutions, not just, you know,critique and ridicule.

Travis Yates (15:48):
So, yeah, that's all good stuff and and give us I
know that the news has been youknow, I mean we have such a
short attention span, butobviously we started talking a
week or two ago, rusty, andwhat's going on in Pacific
Palisades is, you know, it'scataclysmic, right?
I mean I think you've got moreof a personal viewpoint on it.
Kind of give our audience whatyou're hearing from there.

(16:10):
Then let's backtrack that too,because everybody wants to talk
about the mistakes made now, butI want to talk about, when it
comes to real leadership, whichis real risk management.
What were the mistakes made inyears past?
Right Like so, because thestuff yes, this stuff is is,

(16:30):
it's tragedy, you know, manmade,and it happens, whether it's
arson or whatever, but itdoesn't just happen Leadership.
I always say this everythinggood is because of leadership,
everything bad is because ofleadership.
You can wrap it all inleadership.
Let's talk about the leadershipproblems, but first give us a
quick overview of kind of whatyou're hearing.

Rusty Redican (16:41):
you know about, about the area?
Sure, yeah, no, it'sdevastating.
What's happened to those people?
You know, I don't have any,obviously living in northwestern
North Carolina or western NorthCarolina, now just outside of
the floods and then having apersonal connection with the

(17:03):
Palestinians, having workedthere for five and a half years
plus, um, my heart breaks forthem, for the people of lahaina,
hawaii.
I mean, you're talking aboutmassive problems.
That, to your point, which iswhere I'm going to kind of steer
this into, they don't happenovernight.
These, yeah, you have.
Sometimes you have fires thatcan happen, uh, by way of

(17:24):
lightning, right, some naturalresource occurs and or, hey,
look, we're a technologicallyadvanced society, so as much as
we count on the electricaldepartment and those folks to
sort of take care of things,stuff happens right.
But there's a lot of things, toyour point, along the way.
You don't just all of a suddenget to a devastating event.

(17:45):
There are different things thatlend and lead to that.
Can you mitigate every singlething, every single threat?
No, you can't, and I think I'mnot arrogant enough to think
that anything I did in thePalisades could have stopped it
completely.
But to your, your question, andthen just my experience I got

(18:06):
called in to speak with mycaptain.
Just to give a quick sort ofsnapshot of how I got there.
Uh, tina nieto.
She's now a sheriff up innorthern california.
She's the type of person thatknows her people, so she knows.
Okay, I have this issue goingon over here.
Who do I have in my, in myquiver of folks that can go in

(18:27):
there and do what they need todo to affect positive change and
to this current situation, whatshe was dealing with was
massive fires back then.
Now this was end of 2015, 2016.
So she called me in the office.
She said hey, I'd like to sendyou over here.
I want you to do a quick reconof the area.
Let me know what.
What you think I need to sortof, you know, mitigate these

(18:50):
issues, because the Palisadespeople are very upset,
rightfully so.
She wasn't, you know,complaining about it.
She said look, I don't.
We have a lack of resources tobe able to funnel in there.
I want to know what you think Ican do to kind of get this
thing going.
Anyway, went up there, kind ofgot the lay of the land.
I ended up liaising with thishomeless task force that the
Pacific Palisades had puttogether, based on the fact that

(19:14):
they were not getting anytraction with the city also with
their city council member atthe time and the LAPD.
They weren't getting the peopleto sort of mitigate the law
enforcement issues.
That hopefully didn't allow thesituation to get to where the
fire department had to go putout fires right Now.
There's some other causalfactors with respect to just

(19:37):
that tinder, that vegetationthat's been dry, that the state
has failed miserably to hold uptheir end of the bargain on.
Hence the reason why a lot ofthese insurance companies
canceled a lot of people.
But with respect to my sort ofposition, I kind of explained to
the captain then that you'regoing to need 10 officers with

(19:58):
the autonomy to be able to comein at any time of day or night,
change their schedules, have asupervisor obviously assigned to
them to be able to sort of keepeverything on track, and then
they will go ahead and liaisewith this homeless task force
and I think you'll be able toquickly get all of the homeless
encampments out of the hillsides.

(20:18):
Because that was one of thethings she asked me was.
She said you know and again Idon't expect her or any command
staff member to know everysingle square mile of their
division.
That's what they have us for,right, the people out in the
street.
So she said what's with theseencampments?
Apparently, there's encampmentsin the hillsides.

(20:39):
And I kind of chuckled a littlebit.
I said, ma'am, it's like Swissfamily Robinson in those
hillsides.
These people that are in thosehillsides, yes, they're mentally
ill, they're whacked out oncentral nervous stimulants,
they're homeless, but they'repretty smart and they've created
these little sort of smallcities in there.
Anyway, that was what we wereneeding to deal with, because

(21:01):
they were the ones that were,for the most part, starting all
these fires.
Again, that's not to say thatthat's what this particular fire
was started by, but this was amajor problem.
So she sent me in there.
She basically told me I can'tgive you nine other people and a
sergeant, but I'll give you apartner.

(21:22):
And she said people and asergeant, but I'll give you a
partner.
And she said can you do it?
And I did.
Well, obviously you know that Iwill have a pretty good chance
of doing it, or you wouldn't beasking me if I would do it.
So I told her look, that'sgreat, Give me a partner.
I ended up working with acouple of guys.
But I ended up settling on mypartner, jimmy Solomon, just a

(21:43):
stand-up human being and a greatpolice officer, and we went
forth and prospered and justtried to really make the
connection lay, the foundationof communication with the public
.
So we did that for five and ahalf years.
I'm going to gloss over a lotof it, but we were very
successful.
And when I say we, I mean as ateam we were successful.

(22:04):
Successful.
And when I say we, I mean as ateam we were successful.
The Pacific Palisades at thattime put their money where their
mouth was.
I just went over why they.
You know the fact that theyweren't getting any assistance
from the city.
They were constantly gettingstiff armed.
And so they decided how can wemitigate these problems legally
that are infecting our area?

(22:25):
That you know we're going tohave a massive tragedy if we
don't get in front of it.
And so they raised about andagain, I don't want to speak for
that task force, but I'll tellyou what, from what I know, uh,
working arm and arm with themfor five and a half years, they
raised to about two hundredthousand000 per year to fund a
bunch of clinicians, homelessoutreach folks, a nurse, and

(22:48):
also to actually furnish housingfor a lot of the homeless that
they were reaching out to try tohelp.
And about that time you've gotthe Boise case.
That was sort of making thingsdifficult for a lot of
municipalities.
My captain and others asked mewhat I thought of that.
I also would speak to thepeople in these massive

(23:09):
community meetings that wereworried about it and I would
tell them look, according to theBoise case, we're fine, we're
offering resources.
I very quickly and again I'mgoing to kind of go into a few
other things, but very quicklymy partner and I found out that,
look, we can't arrest our wayTwo cops can't arrest our way

(23:30):
out of this problem that societyhas sort of created by, you
know, sort of acquiescing in notgetting these people the help
that they needed for theprevious 50 years.
So we decided, look, we'regoing to have to try to adjust
our positioning.
It should also be said and I'msure you probably have somebody

(23:52):
in your family too, but from myperspective and my partner, we
both had people in our families,immediate families that were
either addicts or alcoholicsthat we applied quite a bit of
empathy into the people that wewere dealing with out on the
street, right.
So hooking up with that, thatPalisades task force, and then

(24:14):
also going to these meetingsevery, you know, every time they
had a community meeting andevery person that I would meet
out on the street, I I gave mycard away and was like hey,
here's my cell number, you getany intel.
Or to them.
I would kind of put it in a waythat hey, look, if you happen
to see a homeless encampment orsomebody going into the hillside
, hey, give me a shout and I'llgo in there and talk to them and

(24:35):
try to get them out of thehillsides.
Both in areas where it wasillegal for them to camp, I
would obviously make sure that Imitigated that and enforced
that.
But also, if it was somebodythat was in an area that they
weren't not allowed to be inmaybe hiking trails, stuff like

(24:57):
that I would just make sure thatthey were not looking to set up
a camp where they would havefires.
So that built a very, veryironclad relationship between my
partner and I, and then duringthe summertime we'd get two
additional officers assigned tohelp us in the summer with the
community.
So, with that said, there's afew things that occurred between

(25:20):
that point and the time that Ileft.
But we get these new captainsthat come in.
They're constantly rotating ina big department like Los
Angeles, and so I think in asmaller department it's easier
because you have and again, thisis not a negative critique on a
smaller department, it'sactually a positive where you

(25:41):
get to see exactly what the nextperson above you, what their
position is, and so you caneither ghost them for an
extended period of time toreally get the lay of the land,
or you're there for so long andit's such an open concept that
you kind of know what's expectedof you when you get there and
you know what resources you haveto bring to bear.

(26:02):
Well, with LAPD we have thathiring issue that we started
this off talking about.
But we also have folks thatcome in that are not.
They don't know the area right.
They might not know what the 26square miles of austere
environment in a hillside whereyou have very little egress and

(26:22):
ingress in terms of getting infor emergency services they
don't quite get it right.
So some of them might have toexplain it to them, bring them
on small rides, show them whatwas going on, but having that
sort of a turnaround makes itdifficult to be able to keep the
resources in place that youneed Now.

(26:42):
With LAPD, I think right nowthere's 8,300 officers.
At one point we were up at10,000.
We got a lot of people playinghide and seek on the inside that
can be sent out to the streets.
But I get it.
We should be 12,000, 15,000cops and I agree with that.
But there are places and WestLA is one of them because it's a

(27:04):
fairly it's a very largedivision, but it is the smallest
in terms of personnel in theentire city.
So having two people assigned todo one sort of 26 square mile
area.
So it's a bit of an ask of thecommand staff that are in charge

(27:25):
, but once they hear whatexactly you're doing, it
shouldn't be a difficult thingfor them to make that decision
that you know what.
I just simply have to havethese guys there, because if I
don't, this is what's going tohappen, right?
So, fast forward.
Most of the captains from 2016up until when I left in 2021,

(27:47):
most of them got it and againable to go in there and explain
it to them in a way that theyunderstood.
From a management perspective,let's talk about the audience.

Travis Yates (27:55):
I mean Pacific Palisades.
I'm sure you have everybody ofevery economic background, but
you have the highest economicsto probably all the way down to
the homeless people in the hills, right and so correct that's
got to be.
It has to be an easy decisionfrom a captain to go.
Yeah, we need to take care ofthis issue because he's probably
hearing it from the backside ifhe's not your lips, god's ears.

Rusty Redican (28:16):
So, um, you know chief moore, who's the chief of
the time.
He had come out to some of themeetings that I I was at and was
very happy with what we weredoing.
A couple of the other folkswere fairly happy Again, and
you're probably not shocked bythis.
I've said it a couple of times,but I'm fairly outspoken, and
when I say outspoken I'm not theguy in the back of roll call,

(28:39):
that's mother effing everybodyall the time and everybody's
horrible except me in life.
That's not my angle.
My angle is I have a seriousproblem and I'm sure you do too
with ineptitude in publicservice, and if you're proving
to me that you're not really ina position to be able to affect

(29:03):
the change and or engage in thethings that your particular rank
expects, yeah, we're probablygoing to have somewhat of an
issue.
Now I was just a police officer,so I also understand that.
I may get my point across, butat the end of the day, I'm just
a police officer.

(29:23):
But back to your point aboutthe people up there.
You're, the end of the day, I'mjust a police officer.
But back to your point aboutthe people out there you're
talking about.
And again.
I did the same thing in SouthCentral Los Angeles.
I still have people in SouthCentral that call me now and ask
how I'm doing.
So it's not like I changed mypolicing overall for the people

(29:43):
of the Pacific Palisades.
I treat everybody the same,whether you're the homeless guy
that's treating me well, whetheryou're the janitor, whether
you're my captain, my partner,joe Blow's citizen who just has
a question.
Look, I understand my place inthis whole dynamic.
But those people up there, toyour point, you're dealing with

(30:05):
millionaires and billionairesthat are self-made.
You're not talking about peoplethat, for the most part, were
given a lump sum of money andthey don't quite know what it's
like to want, right?
They also are the types ofpeople that have lived there for
a long time.
They're very, very good intheir own respective positions,

(30:26):
in whatever they do for work,whether it's a producer, a bank
manager, a bank CEO or whatevertheir positions are.
Most of the people there arevery good at what they do and,
again, they're used to sort of acertain element of service,
right?
Not, you know, an overabundanceof and looking for anybody to

(30:47):
kiss their tail.
That wasn't the experience thatI had with them.
They were actually down toearth and understood when
somebody was very good at theirjob what it looked like, whether
that was police work or whetherthat was the entertainment
industry or, you know, thefinancial industry or whatever,
whether that was theentertainment industry or the
financial industry or whatever.

(31:07):
So these people knew and wouldconstantly say to my partner and
I hey, we're so glad to haveyou guys here.
Well, towards the end there wassome overlap from my job, as the
team in the Eto'o called us thebeach detail on paper, because
from a logistical sort ofdeployment angle, she knew that

(31:30):
if she just put you knowPalisades detail that the people
at Bureau, the deputy chief andthe commanders would be like
well, you already have an A carwhich is your typical patrol car
with the LAPD model that'sassigned to them, so you don't
need this other unit.
Well, there's also a lack ofcrime, typically in the Pacific

(31:52):
Palisades.
So just the way the and it'syou know somewhat the deployment
model of LAPD is somewhatantiquated at times, I think,
probably like many places, butit's a pretty good rolling model
for the most part.
And so when there's crimes inother parts of the 65 square
miles of West LA and or WestValley, on the Valley side or

(32:17):
just past Santa Monica andVenice.
Sometimes you get pulled to gohandle those areas too, and
Wolster Division, the Palisadescar, is typically the first one
to get pulled.
So what then?
Captain Nieto now Sheriff Nietobasically said was look, you're
going to be my beach detail onpaper, but you're going to take

(32:38):
care of all of these otherthings.
You're going to deal with thehomeless folks, you're going to
deal with the quality of lifeissues.
And so we had what we call asenior lead officer.
That's typically assigned there.
Oh look, he was a nice guy, Igot along well with him, but he
was literally one foot out, onefoot in and he's at the end of
his career.
Now, for guys like you and I,we pretty much sprint for the

(33:02):
finish line and then, once weget done, we're like like you've
got something great going onright now.
I don't yet know exactly what.

Travis Yates (33:11):
I'm going to do.
It's hard to stop.
It's hard, you just got to keepgoing.

Rusty Redican (33:16):
It is.
But you to your, your sort ofethos, right, I was always the
guy that wanted to keep working,working, working.
I felt like it was, look, I'mgoing to gain sort of I don't
want to say but the respect ofmy peers by them seeing that I'm
the guy that's out there doingit.
And so I didn't want to go intotraining full-time until this

(33:39):
2021 thing that I'm about toilluminate sort of occurred.
But being an adjunct rifle andshotgun instructor because I had
a lot of respect for those guysand gals that were up at the
range and just wanted to sort ofbe a part of that bigger
picture of them helping officerswith their shooting that I did

(34:02):
that right.
So back to the PacificPalisades Most of the folks that
had kind of that live thereknew and still, because my phone
has not stopped, there'sactually been two people that
have tried to chime in while youand I are talking now, not
because they know we're on apodcast, but because it's just

(34:23):
been a constant flow of justtrying to help them navigate
these problems thatunfortunately they have right
now.
But at the point that I wasdoing the work that my partner
and I were doing with thehomeless.
There was sort of an overlapright With quality of life
issues that typically our seniorlead officer would deal with.
And while I would give people,hey, here's his number, call him

(34:47):
, here's his email, email him.
If you don't do the job that, Iam sending people your way,
that is, in your wheelhouse, andnow I'm face to face with these
folks out in the street.
I now have to do your job foryou Because if I don't, I'm the
bad guy that's sending them toyou, filling them with hey, look

(35:09):
, this guy's very.
You know he's good, he's goingto take care of you, and then,
when you don't do it, I have todo it, which, because they
overlapped, it wasn't that bigof an ask, right?
So I had a conversation withthat particular gentleman at the
time He'd retired and I saidlook, I'm not coming for your
job, I don't want to be a seniorlead officer.
I believe, probably much likeyou, believe, we are all senior

(35:33):
lead officers In LAPD.
That might be the title, andthere's a lot of great senior
lead officers on that department, but I believe every police
officer is a senior lead officer.
They're a community liaisonwith the police department to
the community right.
And so he was like no, no, areyou kidding me?
He was like I'm just happy tohave you.

(35:54):
Things get taken.
I'm going to try not to usefoul language on your podcast,
which everybody that ends upwatching this and sees me,
they're going to go.
That was probably a verydifficult time, but you know I
would take care of the issuesand the people would call me and
it was what it was.
Well, it ended up getting to apoint to where it was very clear

(36:15):
the new management at LAPD West, la at the time was not very,
did not have as much aptitude.
The time uh was not very, didnot have as much aptitude, and
it's disappointing.
But you know when, when youhave a guy that uh, or a person
in a position that has, let'ssay, 25 years on the job but

(36:36):
he's worked 19 different uhdivisions and or um jobs, are
you really good at any of thoseor are you just checking a box?
And I got along with thisperson fairly well.
I thought incorrectly at thetime oh, this guy, he's a man of
integrity, he's going to dowhat's right, he's going to just
keep me doing what I'm doing.
Well, then I found that theywere starting to remove people

(37:00):
from positions like mine becausewe were becoming shorter and
shorter handed out in the fieldand this was a big problem a
couple of times.
Actually, it's a big problemnow.
I don't want to make it soundlike it's gone, it's still a
problem.
There's still not enough people.
So I kind of made the decisionthat, okay, in order for me to

(37:20):
continue to be effective at whatwe're doing in the Palisades,
I'll probably have to put in forthis position when it opens up.
So I did and I'm skipping overa couple of things, and the
things that I'm skipping overare just, you know, I had been
asked by other managers orleaders I call them leaders in
the department that I had workedfor in the past Throughout that

(37:41):
five and a half years.
Hey, come work over here, comedo this particular job.
A lot of them were jobs that aremore suited to somebody
typically with the work ethicand sort of style of policing of
mine.
Most of my friends are likeyou're the homeless czar in the

(38:02):
Palestinians.
I mean because, again, I tendto.
Most of the time that I spentwith my partners in South
Central we were chasing thepredatory individuals.
I don't have time to go sweatthe people that are typically
just, which is the overwhelmingmajority in South Central, are
great.
People just want to live theirlife without getting, you know,

(38:24):
victimized by some predatorygang member, and so you know,
being up there doing the thingsthat we were doing, it was I
could see the fruit of our laborwe took I'm kind of going down
a rabbit hole, but we tookprobably three to six, I don't
recall the exact number you knowthose 30 foot massive dumpsters

(38:45):
full of trash out of thehillside.
We put signs up all over theplace.
So we were doing very good work.
We were getting people off thestreet into housing, including,
as as a Marine, a lot ofveterans that obviously was were
a little bit more near and dearto my heart to be able to get
them off the streets and intoprotective housing and if they

(39:08):
needed recovery from any sort ofaddiction or anything along
those lines, it was very good tobe able to help them.
But once it was very clear thatthey were taking people out of
certain assignments, I knew thatmine was fairly close to being
on the chopping block.
So I put in for the positionand a bunch of the different
Palisades folks, would you know,reach out to me and when I say

(39:30):
a bunch, I'm talking dozens anddozens of people.
When they heard the other SLOwas retiring and that it was
going to be open, of course thenext person that they would want
there would be me.
So I would explain to them look, I appreciate the vote of
confidence and, yeah, I'm goingto put in for the position

(39:52):
because if I don't, I don't seemy work here as being set in
stone.
I think I could possibly betaken out of here.
But I told them look, it's nota guarantee that I'll be it.
Well, we're going to make callsand I told them look, that's
not how this works, but Iappreciate it.
Some of them I said look, themore of you that call, the less

(40:17):
likely I will probably get theposition.

Travis Yates (40:19):
That's right.
You're never a prophet in yourown backyard, for sure.

Rusty Redican (40:23):
That's right.
You're never a prophet in yourown backyard, for sure.
That's it, man, and look, youtouched on it.
You don't tell a millionaire,no, don't do this.
You know what I mean.
I try to explain to them theinside baseball, but you know,
you can only you know directsomebody.
That is like I said, and thisisn't a negative.
These people are very, verygood at what they do and so

(40:44):
they're like well, no, you'reour guy.
So, anyway, long and short, andthere's some nuance to it.
But I was also dealing with alot of professional jealousy in
the particular office that I wasin, and I know that this is a
lot of things.
These are a lot of sort ofthings that a lot of cops don't
talk about, you know, as asoften out in the public eye.

(41:04):
Um, I told you earlier thatI've got a bit of a reputation,
and I don't mean to, that's notso.
I can like pound my chest, it'sjust.
Look, I loathe being around lowenergy, incompetent people.
Loathe it, it's.
I get a.
Being around people like thatis for to me is like being

(41:26):
around a bully.
I get this chemical reactionthat if they do something and
it's woefully incompetent, orthey're lazy or they're just
they don't have the motivationto do the job that they're
supposed to be doing.
Um, it bothers me and andusually I say something right I
try to use if it's somebody Idon't dislike.

(41:47):
For the most part I'll try touse a little jab.
Hey, maybe you should stopplaying hide and seek and excuse
my French.
Why don't you un-ass that chair, head on out here and try and
do some police work?
We need the help.
You might've heard, right, this, this is.
These are some of the thingsthat I would try to use to sort
of joust at them a bit.

(42:08):
Well, a lot of the people and Ihave an audio that I'll send you
later that you can listen to,which will give you a very clear
because I got a couple ofofficers on an open mic.
You know and you've experiencedthat, where somebody, somebody
keys their mic by accident andthey're pontificating about how
they would change the world andyou're trying to call them like

(42:29):
hey, man, you got an open mic.
Two of these knuckleheads didthat and they were getting
frustrated because they werebeing held to the standard that
I was setting in the Palisadesand I'm like, look, man, I'm not
.
This is not rocket science.
I'm simply doing my job.
This is what the public expectsof you.

(42:50):
So a lot of these guys not allof them, uh, but most of the
ones in that particular officethis is not patrol cops, these
are, you know, specialized unitarea um officers they they just
want to do the bare minimum andgo home.
They don't want to deal withpeople, they don't want people
calling them, they just wantthey got this.
It's almost like the perfectgovernment job, right, like I

(43:11):
can't get fired and I can justdo whatever the heck I want.
I can disappear, and justnobody will say a word.
Where guys like you and I havea conscience, and if I don't put
a full day's work in as apoliceman, I don't feel right.
So at that point, thisparticular captain came in and

(43:35):
pulled me aside at one point andasked me what I thought of the
office, because it was not asecret that that office was
filled with lazy people.
The new sergeant same thing.
The old sergeant who promotedthe lieutenant.
He was amazing, he was greatand a true leader.
But once he promoted out, thisother person promoted in and

(44:00):
unfortunately, as I know, youknow, once you get people that
are not competent enough to bein the position they're in now.
They're making decisions.
That's just not a not a goodtime, right, so that I was
dealing with kind of that stuffthere and then put in for this
excuse me this position andbased on my work with the

(44:22):
homeless, I had also written aand I know I'm kind of sporadic
here, but all of this is sort ofconnected um, I had torn my ac
for my, uh, my labor, myshoulder, so I was out beginning
of.
I got surgery I, I.
The injury occurred in thebluffs, which is now burnt to a

(44:43):
crisp Went shoulder first into atree coming down a mountain and
, just like any knuckle draggerin my sort of position, just
kind of sucked it up for acouple of weeks and babied it a
little and felt like, well, I'mgood, documented it with my
supervisor, but if I'm not there, my partner and I aren't there,

(45:04):
the work just doesn't get done,right?
Anyway, fast forward.
Just after the riots I was like, okay, I got to go get this
thing sorted.
There's no way I was going togo out injured during the riots.
That wasn't going to happen.
I would have duct taped my armto my chest to be there to do my

(45:26):
part.
But after everything was sort ofdone, I ended up going and
getting surgery and while I wasoff, they have a really good
city council member in CD11 inLos Angeles right now.
Her name's Tracy Park, verypro-law enforcement and just a
very pragmatic individual whowants to legitimately do the

(45:47):
right thing because she's fromthat area, right?
The guy before her was a guynamed Mike Bonin.
If you haven't heard of who hewas at that time, he's just that
guy that you don't want in aposition of power, and so he
wanted to all the work that wehad done to get all the homeless
out of those hillsides, hewanted to create this homeless

(46:10):
sort of makeshift smallcondominium, um campus on the
beach for all the homeless.
And I, like people are callingme, including some of my, my, I
have some family in that area.
They were calling me like what,what is this guy trying to do?
You have to, you have to saysomething, and I just had

(46:33):
surgery, so I'm off recovering.
So I so I was like, okay, giveme, give me about a week to
figure out how to address itwithout getting in trouble.
Right, give me about a week tofigure out how to address it
without getting in trouble.
Right, because, as you know,when you're a police officer or
a law enforcement officer,regardless of rank, you don't
really have a First Amendmentright, completely right.

(46:54):
And so, even though I was stillvery outspoken and have some
self-inflicted wounds, I stillknew that, hey look, I do have
to tread somewhat lightly,partly because the good
supervisors I have I don't wantthem to get in trouble because
of my mouth, and I got to figureout a way.
So I did and I penned thisresponse that was hey, these are

(47:17):
the pragmatic solutions to thehomelessness crisis that is
infecting major cities, and thisis probably a whole other
podcast that we could do, and Ican send you the writing as well
, but it was basically justpragmatic solutions with some

(47:39):
historical context.
This is how we got here and Ipressed, send boom, sent it out,
and I had people reading thisfrom the far, you know, right
side of the political spectrumand the far left side, people
that I saw say things that were,you know, blm supporters, and

(48:05):
they were like we can't, I can'tbelieve a police officer wrote
this, you know which?
You know I have aself-deprecating sense of humor.
So I told them yeah, me either,but they were very, very
pleased that it showed empathyyet didn't just complain but
gave hey.
These are the solutions thatyou can call on your elected
officials to enact.
You could also have your policedepartment and your other

(48:27):
social services do these things,and you'll see a lot of these
changes, right?
So everybody loved it, exceptone person, one person from the
Pacific Palisades, and thisdoesn't bring me joy.
He no longer has a house.
His house I know who he is Hishouse burnt to the ground.
But he wrote a letter to.

(48:49):
There's a judge, judge Carter,who I had had.
I gave him a ride along in myarea because he wanted to know,
while he was presiding overthese homeless issues for the
county, because he was a federaljudge, he wanted to know what
we were doing for the county.
Because he was a federal judge,he wanted to know what we were
doing.
So I drove him around and hewas like oh, what you're doing
is amazing.
I can't believe that the policeare doing this kind of stuff.

(49:11):
This is great, right.
And so this guy wrote a letter,an email to him.
He attached Assistant ChiefBeatrice Grimala from.
She's retired now from LAPD.
Assistant chief BeatriceGrimala from, from.
She's retired now from LAPD, um, my captain, captain John Tom,

(49:33):
chief Moore, um the the, thedeputy chief of West Muro, mike
Bonin, and also, at the time,the uh board of supervisors, um,
elected official and, basically, you know, clearly did not read
what I wrote, because what hewrote is an email.
In his email I thought this guyhad did not even read what I
wrote.
If he did, he would see thatwhat he's writing is factually
incorrect.

(49:54):
Well, anyway, at that point youhave all these people who are
like, well, who's this guy right?
I mean, the chief knew who Iwas because he saw what we had
done.
My captain knew who I was,judge Carter knew who I was, and
so did Chief Kramala, right,although I was not her favorite

(50:14):
person, but it is what it is.
Some of these people don't likeanybody.
That's not completely kissingtheir tail 24-7.
And I just had too much policework to do to worry about a
shallow ego.
So she, obviously, to be in aposition she's in, from what I'm
told, had her way with mycaptain in terms of, hey, you

(50:37):
better suck this guy up.
So at that point I had CaptainTom and a guy named Captain Ryan
Whiteman, along with Sergeantwhat's his name Scott Alpert,
decided okay, this guy is makingissues for us, having to answer
for him in a way that guys likeyou and I would have been no

(51:00):
problem at all.
They would have called me andsaid, hey, this guy won't shut
his mouth.
And we would have said hey,chief, can I come over and sit
down with you and kind ofexplain a little backstory,
because that's what you want,right?
If I were chief of police or anassistant chief or a captain
and somebody was upset with oneof my officers who didn't do
anything wrong, who was actuallydoing a good job, I would want

(51:24):
to go shed light on what thisperson was doing in the name of
our police department, so thatthey understood that this one
malcontent does not speak forthe entirety of the Pacific
Palisades, nor do they speak forthe homeless that oh, by the
way, this police officer, hispartner and this task force have

(51:45):
done God's work helping thesepeople off the streets.
But that didn't happen At thetime.
That particular captain that Ihad was going through his own
problem in the media with aperceived I don't want to put
you in a position and it's justhe was having some legal issues

(52:06):
of his own that he ended upgetting out from underneath, but
at that time he was sort of inthe crosshairs, so I understood
a little bit of why he washesitant, but he still should
have had the intestinalfortitude to do his job.
So at that point they decidedthat, with all these people

(52:26):
calling and saying, hey look, wewant this guy, we want this
officer as a senior lead officer, they made the decision that
that wasn't going to happen, andso they conspired to
conveniently not select me withall these letters.
Some of the letters are prettyfunny, the ones after the fact.
One lady wrote what on earthwere you thinking?

(52:52):
Not selecting this guy for thisposition?
And so now these people arecalling me and they're saying,
hey, you didn't get the position, so what are you going to do?
So I told them, I said look,well, I'm going to leave.
You can't.
You have to stay here.

(53:12):
If you leave, this is going togo to crap.
And I told them look,respectfully, I deeply love you
guys and love what we've done.
I initially only gave you athree-year commitment, but I
stayed here for five and a half.
I've got it up and running.
You now know what to expect, orwhat is possible, from your law

(53:33):
enforcement partners.
So now you have a barometer,you have a bar to hold the
people that are going to replaceme too, and I would just tell
you that you need to do thatBecause, if you don't, you are
going to have a massivecatastrophe in the way of a
massive fire, which you know tothe conversation you and I have
been having prior to and now wasthe warning.

(53:55):
That was the beginning of thewarning.

Travis Yates (53:57):
Yeah, I just want to.
I just want to remind ouraudience.
So we obviously you identifiedyears ago the homeless issues
and the and then, you know,create some of that issues, and
so you were addressing the rootof that issue and the fact that
people still call you todayshows you the power of that
community outreach and what youwere doing.
I think everybody would love tohave a legacy like that, rusty,

(54:18):
but you've got to keep yourfoot on the gas right.
So at some point, lapd decidedfor whatever reason this
emphasis, we're not going to doanymore that, combined with the
things of the state, the waterreservoirs, everything else I
mean nobody wants to talk aboutthe real reason these things
happen, but it's leadershipdecisions like you just lined

(54:38):
out, is why this happens.

Rusty Redican (54:39):
Boom boom, boom, it's, it's, it's a progression
yep yeah, and look when thathappened.
Just you saw that photo that Iput up and I'll address that.
When that happened, I had gonein front of a board, right, and
you have the same ability.
I think one of the things thatI do okay is run this audio

(55:03):
distribution device under mynose.
When I have to right, I try notto just talk to talk, but if I
have to explain things or if Ihave to go in front of a board
to either defend myself or toput in for a position, I don't
have a problem explaining and orgiving evidence to support my

(55:25):
bona fides or just what mythoughts are.
So we had this board and I hadalready and I can just gloss
over this part I had alreadybeen physically being removed at
different points and thecommand used some nonsense to
try to oh, you know, everybody'shaving to do this, but they

(55:46):
weren't, they were, it wasspecifically targeting me and
whenever I would put in to gospeak with them face to face,
conveniently, they were busy,right, the one captain um, at
one point he's in his car cominginto work and I'm coming in
from from my duties and I seehim and I walk over and I go.
Hey, you know you, I'm kind ofpantomiming do you have time to

(56:09):
talk?
Do you have time to talk?
And he's oh, you don't know,I'm on the phone.
So just did not.
Because he knew that thatconversation unless he just
wanted to bark at me was goingto be uncomfortable, because the
odds of disappointment I neverhide right on purpose.
If, if a person is trying tolie to me, unless it's a

(56:31):
criminal that I'm trying to usethe Jedi mind trick on, that's
different.
But when it comes to a manageror another officer who's doing
something they shouldn't bedoing and they're trying to sell
me on a bag of goods, I wantthem to see my eyes are telling
them you're completely full ofit.
I don't believe a word of it.
And I want them to see thedisappointment, right, right.

(56:52):
So he knew that and so hesteered away from it for as long
as he could.
Now fast forward.
That morning that I took thatphoto that has kind of made the
rounds.
I had gotten flagged down bythree different people within 10
minutes.
That told me hey, it was great,we're so happy to have you.
You did great work up here.
We met your replacement and Iwas perplexed.

(57:15):
I said what do you mean?
My replacement?
Oh, we met your replacement.
This guy, brian Espin, told usthat he's replacing you.
I said, yeah, they haven't madea decision yet.
So, unless he knows something,I don't know, I haven't made a
decision yet.
So unless he knows something, Idon't know.
Um, I, you know, I, I haven'tbeen told anything about a
decision.
That's, excuse me, that's beenmade.
So I called my sergeant, I andI called this, this officer, and

(57:40):
said and text them first.
And then, today, what's?
This is what I just had happento me.
What's going on?
Right, um, and, and this isagain, three different people
within probably about 20 squareyards and within about eight
minutes of one another, right Inthe common area.
That is where the Starbucks inthe Pacific Palisades was.

(58:02):
That building is incineratedand so, anyway, fast forward.
I could see the writing on thewall.
I already knew, or felt like Iknew, they were going to try to
edge me out.
So I decided you know what, Iam going to leave this place
absolutely spotless.

(58:23):
There's not going to be anencampment anywhere.
And so I decided to go make therounds.
Right, I was going to start.
Then I didn't have a landingspot, I had not yet acquired the
position at the academy, but Ithought, either way, I'm going
someplace else, right?
So I went up to make the rounds.

(58:44):
I went up Palisades Drive to theSanta Ynezanez reservoir is.
That was an area that we wouldmake in our rounds, right and I
would.
I had the keys to get in there,so we would go.
We would go in, drive aroundthe perimeter as you saw in
there it's a, you know, a pavedperimeter and then I would go do
my typical foot beats up in thehillsides and in the mountains.
Excuse me, well, I took alittle selfie, I think, that day

(59:09):
.
Actually, if I recall correctly,I was by myself, my partner, um
, so I don't know if he was atcourt or he had something going
on, but uh.
So I was by myself and I took apicture of myself with the
empty reservoir behind me andthen took another establishing
shot, then went down andcontinued on to go do my thing.
But on my way out I saw acouple of guys that were, you

(59:30):
know, doing some maintenance onon one of the electrical um I
don't know if it was an, it'snot a complete tower, but one of
the areas that are that werewas powering something.
And I said, hey, what's, what'swith the water?
Is it, what's up with thisthing being empty?
And at the time I didn't thinkanything of it.
They just said, oh, we, oh, wehad to empty it for, for, uh,
for maintenance.
And I thought, oh, didn't thinkanything of it, and then I left

(59:53):
and went and did my thing and,um, eventually got a position
and went elsewhere.
But when this fire hit and I wastalking to firefighters to your
point earlier, I still have allthese connections and all these
people that you know my heartbreaks for but that you know I'm
in communication with, and sowhen I found out that the

(01:00:14):
firefighters were heard, theywere hooking up their hoses and
you know it wasn't every singleum fire hydrant, but the
majority of them at one pointended up being empty, right.
So I'm like gosh, you know whatI think.
I have a picture of this empty,this, and that was 2021, july

(01:00:38):
5th, at 09 15 in the morning.
Now, I don't know, I it's notmy job to to be able to, you
know, do my due diligence andfigure out how long it's it's
been empty, but I find it ratherironic that it's empty.
You know, they were sayingdiligence and figure out how
long it's it's been empty.
But I find it rather ironicthat it's empty.

Travis Yates (01:00:52):
You know they were saying as of february of the
year before, or I don't know ifthey said it was february or or
november, but either way um yeah, they obviously knew it was
empty, they knew the dangers,they knew the problems, um, and
you know the whether, whether wedon't, we don't do a great job
of holding each otheraccountable.
But you know, yeah, you know,you know everybody wants to

(01:01:14):
blame the mayor this or the firechief this, but there's a lot
of people, all the way into theranks of the police department,
city council, you name it, thatknew this was an issue and uh,
yeah, I hope we take I hope wetake some lessons from it rusty
yeah, well, to the exact pointof who I warned, right, I sent
emails and physically,face-to-face warned.

Rusty Redican (01:01:37):
I'll name them Captain John Tom Brian Esmond
the slow that is charged withbeing up there, his sergeant,
which was my sergeant at thetime, scott Alpert.
I told these people to theirface at the time look, if you
stop doing what we've been doing, if you take those people out

(01:01:57):
of there because they hadanother couple of officers that
they were going to put in there,officers Yee and Margin
officers are great policeofficers.
They're very good, they're veryyoung but they're very good
police officers, very competent.
And if they were to have beenleft there to continue the work
that my partner and I did, thenI think it would have been a

(01:02:19):
different situation.
We were the ones that trainedthem and so I explained very
much to them the same thing.
Like, look, if they take youout of here and I'm going to
give you a little evidence tosupport that then this is going
to revert back to Swiss Family,robinson and the Hill Sides,
because PPTFH was the PacificPalisades Task Force on

(01:02:39):
Homelessness.
They had a little bit ofsuccess before law enforcement
came on to help them out, butnowhere near the success they
had when my partner and I werewith them, pretty much
completely right, and I don'twant to make it, I don't want it
to sound as if that's all wedid, and I know I touched on

(01:03:00):
some of the other quality oflife things.
But mitigating the man-made firethreats in the hillsides, it
wasn't just homeless people thatwe were going in and talking to
.
We would get information, Iwould get people call me or text
me.
Hey look, these kids are goingup partying, lighting up
fireworks.
If it was around New Year's andor around 4th of July,

(01:03:20):
obviously those times that stuffkicks up.
Can you come in and addressthis?
Right?
They're drinking in thehillsides, they're smoking
marijuana.
We don't want them to flick acigarette butt and start it
those types of very realisticconcerns.
So we would go deal with thatstuff too.
And then we also trained thisother, these other two officers,

(01:03:40):
to do the same.
Well, I told you about when Iwas off injured and I wrote that
that little little piece.
Well, I explained veryexplicitly to Sergeant Alpert
and to Captain Tom respectfullyhey guys, please, I implore you,
please leave these two guys,just these two.

(01:04:02):
Just let them do the thingsthey're going to keep you in the
loop, we don't just go doanything and nobody knows what
we're doing.
I would let my sergeant knowevery day hey, this is what
we're doing.
Give him sort of a brief afteraction like, hey, this is what
we did, how we did it.
And so one day and this isn'tfunny, but these officers went
in and they found somebody hadstarted a new encampment, right,

(01:04:31):
and they actually found thisguy and they were.
They had.
He was in an area that hecouldn't be.
There are signs, no trespassing.
And in the dealings they hadwith them they found out that he
had a warrant for his arrest.
So they took him to jail.
Well, while they were walkinghim out of the bluffs, this guy
says to them hey, just so youknow, you guys haven't been here
for a little while and there'sfive more encampments up here

(01:04:56):
that are active.
So these guys armed with thatinformation I was in constant
communication with them when Iwas off IRD because, again, I'm
that guy and I would passinformation to them that I would
get from people.
Right, they said, hey, just soyou know, we just arrested this
guy on our way back to thestation.
He says there's five moreencampments, we're going to go

(01:05:18):
and deal with those tomorrowwhen we come back in bright and
early.
Well, the next day they call meand they go hey, just so you
know.
Yeah, sergeant Alpert won't letus go out there.
He's got direct orders from thecaptain to send us to these
other parts of the division,right, and not to go back to the
Palisades.
We told him that we have theseother encampments and he said

(01:05:40):
sorry, these, this is neitherdirect orders from the captain.
He wants you to go work in thisarea.
So I warned them, you to gowork in this area.
So I warned them, I told themnow you have another couple of
officers and a homeless personwho's telling them hey, look,
there's these other encampments.
And, just so you know, theseguys are smoking a lot of
narcotics.
There's going to be a fire ifyou don't get them out of here.

(01:06:02):
They ignored that.
What do you think happened thefollowing day?
Massive fire.
I'll send you the photos thehelicopter Luckily they're on
top of it, meaning Station 69,lafd and Station 23.
Great bunch of guys that arevery good at what they do.
So they were able to use airassets and put it out.

(01:06:23):
But what?
The people at the top of thePalisades and the Bluffs were
texting me and sending me photosof, and calling me hey, we're
at the top watching thisfireisades and the Bluffs were
texting me and sending me photosof and calling me hey, we're at
the top watching this fire.
There's a homeless guy thatjust took off running.
The police are, we have anofficer here, but the fire
department's not here yet andthe guy's running to PCH.
So what do I tell them?

(01:06:43):
I go, look, get off the phonewith me, go tell that police
officer to call in additionalresources to go take this guy
into custody, even if, for thevery least, he's being detained
pending an investigation, right,so that didn't happen.
And so you had that massivefire.

(01:07:04):
And I ended up telling themlook, I'm trying not to be the
guy to say I told you.
So I told you what was going tohappen.
These managers did not have thebenefit of the Captain Nietos,
right, that were there beforeand dealt with the fires and the
influx, or the constant phonecalls rightfully so from a

(01:07:30):
community that was upset becauseyou look at what happened and
this was the possibility.
Now, ultimately, that's wherethey are Now.
When I left, yeah, I was prettyupset, right, and I'm not a
silent kind of guy, I don't.
I don't, I don't suffer insilence If somebody has done

(01:07:52):
something to be in with malice,which is what I believe happened
.
And so, yeah, I wasn't shy, Iwas, I was telling people when
they called me look you, you gotto make sure you hold these
people to account.
They would call the citizens,would call me and say, look,
we're not getting the level thisis after I went to the academy
we're not getting the level ofservice that you and your

(01:08:14):
partner gave us.
What do we do?
And I told them look, first yougo to the captain, right, or you
go to the sergeant.
You go to the officer first Imean, he's not helping you out
the slow Then you go to hissergeant.
If that doesn't work, you go tohis sergeant.
That doesn't work.
You go to his captain.
That doesn't work.
You go to the chief over or thecommander of bureau.
You know you just have toincrementally go up.

(01:08:35):
Well, you're tellingmillionaires how to
incrementally go and complainand they're like why would I do
that?
I'm just going to go to themayor, right.
I'm going to go to mycongressman, my senator.
The chief of police is going toget email.

(01:08:57):
And that's what happened, right.
So these folks called and saidhey, will you go on this Zoom
meeting and listen to thismeeting we're going to have with
Captain Tom, sergeant Alpertand Brian Espin, which is the
LAPD sort of contingent for thatarea, right, the captain, the
sergeant in the slow office, andthey're slow.
And so I went on and I changedmy name so that I could just use
anonymity and listen and watchwhat they were saying.
And you and I know and when Isay you and I, I also mean every

(01:09:23):
other police officer from thetwo-month academy recruit to the
chief of police and or all ofthe retired police officers and
detectives that are out there weknow what a consensual
encounter is and how to usethose right number one use them

(01:09:44):
to to build the rapport with thecommunity, but you can also use
them to sort of get additionalinformation from either you know
nefarious individuals or peoplethat are that you know are up
to no good, but you don't reallyhave anything that you can stop
them on legally.
And again, you know this wholeand I'm not going to get into

(01:10:04):
the rabbit hole on this but theterm constitutional policing is
something that's been thrown outfor quite a while.
I don't know about you, but Idon't know any other way to
police other than to adherestrictly to the Constitution of
the United States of America.
And a lot of times my bossesprobably were not happy because

(01:10:24):
I, you know, look, I stick toexactly what my oath of office
was.
Well, I'm listening to theseguys get asked questions why are
you, officer Espin, why aren'tyou doing what Rusty was doing,
right?
Why aren't you doing what Jimmyand Rusty were doing?
You're not approaching thesepeople.
And then the answer was well, Ican't approach them if they're

(01:10:47):
not breaking the law.
And I'm like gosh.
And then if, to make mattersworse, his sergeant and his
captain doubled down on that andsaid look, I expect my officers
to only engage.
I'm like no, you don't.
You expect your officers tobuild a foundation of
communication and trust withyour community and trust with
your community.
So warning those folks andexplaining to them the very real

(01:11:13):
potential was ignored.
And instead what they did wasthey went on sort of a campaign,
if you will, to sort of sullymy name and besmirch me, telling
the people that watched exactlywhat I did.
There's nothing I did that wassecret.
There's nothing that I did,that any good police officer

(01:11:35):
could have done the exact samething, right?
I'm not necessarily special inthat regard, but they saw what I
did.
There's nothing, that's that'ssecret, right?
Instead, they went in anddecided, well, we have to
besmirch this guy as best we canwithout, you know, getting into
legal trouble.
Say, look, he didn't do the jobthat he said he did, he did
this job.

(01:11:55):
They know that that was acausal factor to get us to where
we were on the 7th of lastmonth.
And so I do believe and I don't,I don't, I think 90, I'm

(01:12:20):
probably 98% that this was notstarted by a homeless person.
Everything that I'm seeing isthat it was a human that did it,
but whether it was arson thatwas committed on purpose and or,
obviously, as you know, now wehave also a homicide
investigation, because you have28 people that have lost their
lives.

(01:12:40):
So, look, this happened at thehand of a human, in my opinion,
hand of a human, in my opinion.
I personally don't believe Icould be proven wrong, but I've
talked to my stepdad, who's aretired firefighter, line
firefighter.
I've talked to a bunch of linefirefighters that were actually

(01:13:02):
out there, responded to the NewYear's Eve or New Year's Eve
morning, fire, right, and mostof them are all saying the same
thing.
Actually, they're all sayingthe same thing with no look.
There's different times whereembers can come up and and
provide, you know, provide thissort of devastation or at least
this kind of fire, especiallywith 80 to 100 mile an hour

(01:13:22):
winds, but they're like nah, ifthis was started by fireworks,
it was fresh fireworks.
And again, this is the opinion,opinion of folks that I'm not
going to name because of theobvious.
I'm okay to be pummeled, butthey're still actively working.

Travis Yates (01:13:39):
Yeah, and I think, more importantly than how it
started was I think the storyyou lined out, Rusty, of where
we got how we got here right.
I think that's really thelesson that all leaders,
managers, should be listeninghere is is we need to listen to
the people on the ground, listento people that know what
they're doing, understand thatrisk management is everybody's
job, because, as horrific asthis is, shame on us if we don't

(01:14:03):
take some lessons from it.

Rusty Redican (01:14:05):
Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing right there is.
I've always appreciated adebrief right.
Most cops and military andsheriffs understand an
after-action report right, evenan after-action brief on LAPD.
We refer to them as debriefs.
After an incident, um, or, youknow, I was a peer member on

(01:14:33):
critical incident, um issuesthat you know, obviously, when
you get involved in a shootingor you have some sort of a leery
call out or, uh, a criticalincident where deadly force was
used.
I was a a peer member, much, Ithink you.
You would state that you'vedone that as well and so I'm
familiar with how that works.
So you debrief what occurrednot to you know, to sort of, you
know, grill the officers thathave done the job, that may have

(01:14:55):
made some mistakes, and or justlook, they did everything in
policy.
But, to your point, we canlearn from this, right, because
I think that's the job of lawenforcement that I think a lot
of times we've done very good at, which is continue to sort of
as a profession, start to becomebetter and better.
Unfortunately, we've had asimilar digression because of

(01:15:20):
some of the demographicimperative stuff that has
unfortunately been mainstayed.
But, yeah, they need to look atthis and go okay, I made some
mistakes here.
I shouldn't have done this.
I should have kept these guysthere because, look, we had that
place for the most part when wewere working.

(01:15:41):
And when I say on lockdown, Idon't mean that people couldn't
go enjoy themselves.
To the contrary.
Even during COVID, when therewas this edicts going all around
the country of you can't go out, you can't go hiking yeah, I'm
not doing that, I'm not stoppingpeople from enjoying their
constitutional rights, and thatdidn't happen.

(01:16:02):
I purposefully.
People wanted to go surf, goahead, see, united States of
America, Go, go.
Do I think the other?

Travis Yates (01:16:10):
importance that I want people to take from this is
just the difference that acouple of cops can make, right,
I mean, you obviously lined outthat story, but everybody needs
to understand the power of one.
Like, if you're a policeofficer somewhere in america,
you have the potential toliterally uh, you know, stop,
stop catastrophe at some point.
Right, I mean so, mean, so it'spretty amazing.

(01:16:30):
Rusty, I can't thank you enoughfor being here.
Pretty incredible story.
I think it's one that none ofpeople are talking about.
We all want to just put a blameon somebody, but at the end of
the day, we need to really lookat the cause of leadership and
the decisions made on how we canimprove in the future.
So thank you so much for beinghere.

Rusty Redican (01:16:48):
You got it, I and the decisions made on how we
can improve in the future.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
You got it.
I'd like to leave with this andI ended this on with the Fox
News as well just because it'sapplicable.
It's tragically ironic in thisparticular case that the Pacific
Palisades people who put theirmoney, and not all of these
people we touched on some of themillionaires and billionaires
and very wealthy individuals theoverwhelming majority of people

(01:17:10):
in the Pacific Palisades arenot those people.
They're not very, very wealthy.
You know they've lived therefor 60 plus years, 50 years but
those people all chipped in,whether it was their time or
their money or their clothes, tobasically help homeless folks
get off the streets, and thetragic irony is it's now them

(01:17:35):
who are finding themselveshomeless at this point, and
that's where all of theseleaders that you and I are
talking about they need to jockup.
Do the right thing.
Look, if you're going to have alittle egg in your face, it's
okay, as long as you wipe it offand learn from your mistakes
where they're not egregious.
Some of the others.
They got some splinting to do.

Travis Yates (01:17:57):
Russ, you're Etikin.
Thank you so much.
If you've been watching oryou've been listening, thank you
for doing that.
Thank you for spending yourtime with us.
Just remember, lead on and staycourageous.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at www.
travisyates.
org.