Antonio - From Termination to Redemption: Overcoming Adversity in Law Enforcement

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Antonio, a former police officer, shares a harrowing yet enlightening story of his abrupt fall from grace. After a domestic violence call leads to an investigative spiral questioning his integrity, he reflects on the challenges of law enforcement, the emotional toll of wrongful termination, and the resilience required to move forward. 

• An early interest in law enforcement and career aspirations 
• First days in the police academy and experiences on patrol 
• The dangers of responding to domestic violence calls 
• Investigative challenges leading to accusations of dishonesty 
• Emotional and psychological struggles following wrongful termination 
• The importance of resilience and support in overcoming adversity

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hector Bravo.
Unhinged Chaos is now insession.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome back to our channel Warriors.
We are still growing.
Today, we have a special guestby the name of Antonio.
This guy was an El Centropolice officer man.
His career did not end the wayhe would have liked to, and
we're going to dive into exactlywhat transpired and led up to
that.
What's up, antonio?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
what's up, man?
Good, good, it's good to meetyou, man.
Likewise, dude.
How was your drive over here?
It was good.
No traffic, that's good bro.
Maybe the later traffic will bea little bad, but for sure, so
let's jump right into it, man,yeah you said you were born in
Brawley.
I was born in Brawley Novemberof 92.
Lived in Mexicali probably sixmonths before my parents bought

(00:49):
a house in Calexico and my mom'shouse is still there to this
day.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
So you were born in Brawley, moved to Mexicali and
then ended up landing inCalexico.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, and then that's where you went through your
schooling.
No, actually, my mom used towork for the county of education
in like Imperial County andthen when I started kindergarten
, I went to Montessori.
It's off of Clark and rightbefore the overpass and I ate on
Clark Street.
Yeah, yeah, went there.
And then I went to MeadowsUnion School District out in

(01:17):
closer to Hopeville, okay, afterthat Southwest.
High School, you were all overthe Imperial Valley.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Man All over the place, bro, fucking hot down
there.
Huh, it is, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
So at that point you were going through your
schooling, did you have the ideathat you wanted to be a cop?
Nah, man, actually when I wasyoung uh, I mean, obviously I
feel like every kid likes thepolice officers, the
firefighters, stuff like thatbut somewhere during like high
school I remember I was thinkingabout like nursing or doctor,
you know, but I've never beenmuch of a school guy, so I was
like no yeah you.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm sure you stayed out of trouble.
You seem like a squared awaykid, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
I stayed out of trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, and you kind of probably have to.
You want to be a cop?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
yep, so I mean I got my few run-ins, you know like
not not gonna lie when I waslike 18, I did little crazy
stuff, but what's up?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
meow, meows, or across the border, or uh, no man
I was actually.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
I could have been and a full disclosure could have
been charged with drunk inpublic, but, you know, did me a
favor.
They were there, dude, you know, but it was I get it dude.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
So at what point did you get that idea that you want
to be a cop?

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I was like 18 man.
I was 18.
I was in college for somethingcompletely different.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I was in culinary art school, believe it or not damn
now your idea of cops, becauseto me, dude, the cops in the
imperial valley are differentthan the cops in bigger cities
such as san diego or la um.
It just seems like up herethey're way more cool, bro,
because they got a lot going on.
Yeah, they don't got the timeto.
You know?
Harass from my opinion.
Was that your example of a copthat you wanted to be, or would

(02:53):
you watch it from the TV andstuff?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It was actually probably.
Yeah, first like TV.
And then when I was 18, Istarted doing ride-alongs at the
Calexico Police Department.
That's cool.
And then the first officer Iwent on a ride-along with super
cool, and I was like, hey, man,I could probably do this.
I think I can, but I was only18, you know.
So I had to wait, Did you likeadrenaline?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Do you like adrenaline?

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Do you like action?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
and stuff.
I have to, you have to.
Yeah, don't ask my wife.
That's the worst kind bro.
I really like your stylealready, dude.
Thanks man.
So how old were you when youapplied?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
And what agency?
El Centro, el Centro PD.
I think I was just over.
I had just turned 20, I believe, because I remember taking the
test like the Pellet B.
I don't know what it's callednow I think they changed it, but
the written exam back then wascalled the Pellet B.
How was that?
Actually, it wasn't that bad.
I remember I was nervous for it, but it's really a lot of

(03:57):
common sense, man.
It's not crazy.
And lo and behold, I passed.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
And then what happens ?
They schedule a physicalexamination afterwards.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yes, right afterwards you got to do a jump over a
fence.
Jump over a fence, drag a dummy, all that stuff.
Run a.
It should be like a mile and ahalf, because that's the state
requirement, but I think theyonly made us run like a half
mile and they just if you'regoing on pace for a good mile
and a half, that's good enoughfor them.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
So, as you're going through this process, bro
because I want to walk into themindset Right Are you excited,
are you happy that you'repassing these exams that are
being put in front of you?

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, man, because in all honesty a lot of people are
like, hey, man, don't expect toget hired right away.
You're young, you know, somepeople's maturity levels are
higher than yours.
So my mentality was like, okay,I'll use it as experience.
If I don't get hired on, thenI'll try again later on, you
know.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, that's good dude.
So written exam, polypsychological exam too.
How about polygraph?

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Oh yeah that one too.
They did a polygraph on youthey sent us up to San Diego.
Actually, it was myself andanother, another female officer
who got hired with me.
Was that?
Yeah, man?
How was that?
How was that bro?
Were they asking weirdquestions?
Did you feel nervous?
Yeah, because you're literallylike you can't move.
They're like, if you take adeep breath, they're like, no,

(05:11):
you can't do that.
I'm like, dude, I take deepbreaths all the time.
You know what do you mean?
I can't do that, but you're like, you're just here and sorry if
I go to spanish man all right goahead, talk spanish freaking
bilingual, we're in californiayeah, from the valley most of
all you know, watch out whentrump gets an office.
So we're like sitting, I'msitting down and this is, you
know, and I really honestlythought I had failed it, dude,
because why?
Because I was just like nervous, I was like I can't move, I'm

(05:32):
like if I moved a little toomuch.
But no man, I passed pastpsychological and I had a friend
.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
he did sandy, or he did.
He applied for, uh, imperialcounty sheriff.
They asked him some weird doyou ever have sex with animals?
Yes, did they ask that?
Yeah, bestiality, straight up,dude.
Wow, all right, just wanted theviewers to understand what
happens in polygraph.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Be honest and say yes if you have all right yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Is that a disqualifying?
I don't know, man.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
I don't have experience in that area.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
You sure can, officer , bro.
So uh, so there's that dude.
You are just passing withflying colors, bro.
What about the interview?
Is that how?
The one of the final stages?

Speaker 1 (06:12):
yeah, the panel interview um it's a panel
interview yes, it's a.
Um.
Well, it's funny because, beingfrom el centro, or actually
from clexico, but I went toschool in el centro, um, the
panel is is composed of I thinkit was like the HR manager at
the time, a detective at thetime just people from the police

(06:33):
department, and one of them wasthe SRO.
When I was in high school, theSRO is the school resource
officer.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
So he was at Southwest High School when I was
there.
Did he remember you?
He did Well, that's cool, yeah,yeah, not high school when I
was there.
Did he remember you?
He did Well, that's cool yeahyeah, not because of bad stuff,
you know.
Yeah, yeah, so that one wasinteresting.
And I have to say by that timeI had already taken some courses
at IVC, the Imperial ValleyCollege for Criminal Justice.
Yeah, so I already knew what toexpect.
One of the teachers there, oneof my teachers there was already

(07:00):
a police officer there.
My teachers there was already apolice officer there.
So he kind of coached me forthe interview.
So I was, I was good and andhonestly I do have to give him a
lot of credit for passing- thechief wasn't on any type of
panel or interview or anything.
I think that was just the finalinterview for the chief you
interviewed, final with thechief.
He makes the final decision, hemakes the call.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, I don't know anything about that.
What kind of questions areasked For the panel you said
with the final with the chief.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Oh, the final with the chief.
It's mostly like to get to knowyou personally, like more
face-to-face, because at thatpoint he's taking his background
investigator's word foreverything, right?
So he just kind of wants tojust to see who this candidate
is, candidate is, and put theseal on it.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
That makes sense and how long was your process from
the time you applied to the timeyou got hired on?

Speaker 1 (07:55):
I want to say I applied like I turned in my
paperwork in november of 2012and april of 2013.
I was getting sworn in as apolice recruit.
I'm not good at math, bro.
Bro, how long was that?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
December, january, february, march, five months,
five months, all right, fivemonths, that's pretty fast, dude
.
Was El Centro PD hiring at thattime like a mass hiring, or
were they not hiring?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
No, but I got lucky because at that time they would
only take people like laterals.
Okay, so the difference is alateral already has their
post-certification Right, arecruit they're going to it's
basically a scholarship dude.
They put me through the wholething and they paid for
everything.
Plus they paid, they gave me apaycheck.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
This is interesting, bro, because I know how the
story ends yeah.
This is interesting.
That's crazy, dude.
So there was two people thatgot hired you and a female.
She was a brand new cadet, alsonot a lateral Brand new cadet.
Yeah, okay, so El Centro PDhires you brand new lateral.
That means they're forking overmoney to send you to the
academy, and you said theacademy was up here.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, here at the Miramar College, the San Diego
Public Safety Institute.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
How excited were you when you got the call or the
letter that you got hired on.
Was it a call?
Was it?

Speaker 1 (09:04):
a letter.
It was a call to come into thepolice department.
They're like hey man, you're it, it's you, and I'm not going to
say her name.
But uh, this other lady you'regood to go, let's go.
So we were at the policedepartment maybe for like two
weeks before the academy.
How did you feel when you gothired on?
I was excited, man.
I couldn't believe it.
You know, I couldn't believe it.
I uh, I've always been like,ever since, uh, even though I

(09:27):
didn't know my whole life, I wasgonna be a police officer, like
I've always liked helpingpeople and I know it sounds
corny and every police officer'sgonna say I'm here to protect
and serve.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
But no, I mean, I was here for it.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Dude, you know, like I, I didn't know what I was into
yet, but I'm telling you, I'mgood at reading people, bro, I
could read you.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
You have a good heart , dude, right off the top.
Appreciate it, man.
So you go to this academy, man.
How was that dude?
How was it physically and howwas it mentally?
Let me tell you bro.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
I messed up the first day, dude.
Well, we messed up.
My partner and I are a team.
We were staying at a hotel inMiramar, or Mira Mesa, and she
woke up late, dude.
But I couldn't leave her behind.
So it's like F it we're bothhere, we're both going to be
late, so everybody's already inthe classroom and here we go.
It's like the movies, dude.

(10:15):
There's like a staircaseleading down.
It's in the back corner of thecampus of the college and we're
late.
How late?
Maybe 10 minutes, okay, not.
How late.
Maybe 10 minutes, okay, not toolate.
But you know, late is late, man, right, and it's like
paramilitary training.
So there's like drillinstructors in your face.
As soon as we walked into thatclassroom, oh man, they were all
over us and unfortunately, nowwe're a target.

(10:35):
You know, oh, central PDrecruits, you guys are doing
this, you guys are going to goback home, you know.
So when you walked in, were theclass in session or they were
all standing at attention.
We were on.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Everybody was in their dress blues because we
have like the uniform and theonly two clowns walking in are
myself and my partner.
About how many?
How many drill sergeants werethere?

Speaker 1 (10:55):
like, um, I want to say like, and they're only there
for a couple days, maybe a weekor so drill sergeants just by
themselves, like 10 maybe, andthen they all just went towards
you too.
Uh, only a couple, but thereeverybody was yelling from all
over and then they had us all gooutside.
Um, I don't sorry, man, I knowI keep talking, but um, we're

(11:16):
all divided in three sections,so it's a section, b section, c
section you don't have toapologize for talking, bro, it's
the podcast yeah, but I feellike I keep going, you know yeah
um, and then did everybody pay?

Speaker 2 (11:28):
did they make everybody do push-ups or
something?
I like that.
I like mass punishment, bro.
Yeah, one screws up, everybodyscrews.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, it's a team thing exactly now I understand,
after the academy, youunderstand that it's all of you
together, nobody at all.
You know, correct?
So we did that.
And then I was young man.
You know my immaturity wasshowing right off the bat.
Um, I was 20 years old, Iwasn't even 21.
So I remember and I'll neverforget this man.
Honestly, I'm thankful for theofficer that was in charge, and

(11:53):
I'll say his name.
His name is, I heard he's nowsergeant accessory with the san
diego police department.
He helped me grow a lot man.
Good dude, he was hard, but Iremember I cracked my fingers
once when we were supposed to bestanding at attention yeah and
he looked at me and said, reallyboom, everybody down, why?

Speaker 2 (12:09):
did you?
Why did you crack your fingerswhen you were supposed to be in
the possession of attention?

Speaker 1 (12:13):
just didn't, yeah man , like I said I was, it was.
That was the first week too,and I remember him coming up to
me if you keep doing this, I'mgonna make you fail.
You will not drag this sectiondown.
Fair enough, fair enough thatwas it.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
And then you got.
You turned it up um, how aboutat that time?
Did you get exposed to chemicalagents?
Maybe a taser tear gas?
What you got?

Speaker 1 (12:34):
everything yeah, everything was um, there was a,
an order to everything.
So first it was like you knowhow it is, man, like it's worse,
probably in the military is alot harder.
You were in the military, right?
So the first couple weeks isyou're gonna weed out the people
that are gonna quit right away.
Did people quit?
right, oh yeah I'm telling youthere's.
I'll send you the link to avideo.
There's a video on on youtube.
I was in the 96th regionalacademy yeah, hoorah, um, it was

(13:00):
raining the first two daysstraight out of a movie and
these drill instructors withtheir drill instructor.
Smoky hat, yeah the smoky hatand it's like raining and just
like out of a movie.
One of the officers says like Iasked for it to rain and it
rained, Wow, wow, and they hadus running in the rain, doing
burpees in the rain, getting allwet.
Yeah, it's not training if it'snot raining, they say so a lot

(13:20):
of people were like I'm done,I'm done really no freaking way,
dude, fuck, I'll be damned ifsome rain fucking makes me quit.
Yeah, man and especially with me, I, I very, I'm very much so.
I'm like, if you tell me Ican't do it, I'm gonna show you
I could do it exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
I'm the same way, dude, so I'm not gonna quit well
, it's kind of funny because asa cop, you have to work out in
the rain like work patrol in therain.
So, yeah, I don't get it.
Wow, bro.
So do you remember the chemicalagents when they pepper sprayed
you in the face and that shitsucked for you?
Yeah, how about that for you?

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Luckily I had already done it at the IBC.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
At the Academy, at IBC or at the IBC.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
So I was like damn.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
In my head I'm like I got to do straight up like, do
like a Z kind of thing in frontof you, and then they have you
run down, or no, no, they hadalready had us run down.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
And then they have you fight, they have you cuff
somebody up, they have you patthem down, and then you have to
go through the same day.
You have to go through all theother ones, like the CS gas.
In my opinion, I would ratherbe OC than the CS gas.
Absolutely, I just could not.
Cs is horrible, dude, terrible.
We did not get tased.
That was a department-specifictraining and full disclosure.

(14:30):
I said I do not want to gettased, so I said nope.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
You have the option to not get tased and not carry a
taser.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
No, I carried it, but you have the option to not get
tased.
Oh, you do, yeah, at the policedepartment, you do.
I don't know that.
Yeah, it just it's alldepartment specific, but we did
that.
And then, um, you have to passall your shooting and everything
um first aid.
There's a lot of things likecrimes against children, all

(14:57):
this stuff what year was thisagain?

Speaker 2 (14:58):
you said 2013 right 2013 this was before george
floyd.
This was before George Floyd.
This was before Black LivesMatter.
This was before the protestsAll cops are bastard.
Acab Before, actually before itwent woke, Before America went
woke, Before it went woke.
So what kind of stuff, if youcan recall, was being pushed

(15:18):
into your guys' brain from adrill sergeant point?
Was it like, hey, you guys aregoing to be fighting criminals
on the street?
You better get your shittogether?
What kind of stuff were they?

Speaker 1 (15:28):
doing.
Yeah, like type of like.
If you're afraid of me, you'renot going to last out there.
If you can't handle this flightof stairs, you're not going to
run and help your partner whenyou have a Code 3 call.
Yeah 1199, god forbid.
You hear that call over theradio, that you hear that call

(15:49):
over the radio.
That's a terrible thing.
Um, they just want to know thatyou're going to be there.
You know, and, and it's allkinds of.
It's mostly composed of sandiego pd and san diego sheriffs,
but we had escondido carlsbad.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, bro, see, that's what I think.
Policing should be focused on.
Bread and butter, same with themilitary so they taught us how
to fight.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
You know that we would fight them.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Defensive Defensive tactics Defensive tactics,
combatives.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Combatives, safe forms of cuffing people.
I bet you were loving it.
I was man.
I was.
I just, you know, at a youngage I never thought I'd be able
to do that.
You know, I'll take pride inSatan.
I was the youngest in theacademy.
Oh, you were.
I was.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Dude me.
Oh, you were, I was dude, yougot a.
You got a really good break,bro, like they looked out for
you, but unfortunately I again Iknow how the story fucking ends
, dude.
It's horrible bro that's whythat's why I'm building up the
crowd right now about how greatyour experience was, bro, and
this is a reality, the realityof unfortunately things.
So when you got pinned yourbadge, how was that day for you?

(16:42):
Were you excited?
Did people come and visit you?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, man, it was my.
Well, my parents have beendivorced since I was like 16,
but they were both there.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
My mom and my dad.
I can't remember who else washere.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
if I'm honest with you, Are they allowed to pin you
?
Did somebody pin you the badge?

Speaker 1 (16:59):
No, it was one of the officers from there.
I think they're like they willonly let you get pinned if the
other person pinning you isalready law enforcement.
That makes sense, that's cool.
And or military, I believethat's cool.
They have military experience.
They'll let them pin you.
And we got.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Uh, the ceremony was at the miramar base then, after
you graduate from the academy,how much days go by till you
start your job?

Speaker 1 (17:22):
they just gave me the weekend off and I went back the
next week.
I had to move all my stuff down, but by then it was only me.
My partner didn't make itthrough the academy.
Move all your stuff down fromwhere From, cause we were put up
at a hotel.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
They were paying for the hotel, they were paying for
the hotel, they gave us a car,they gave us gas Rental car and
a freaking paycheck, bro.
You were doing it, man, and whydidn't your partner pass, if
you could?

Speaker 1 (17:47):
say yeah, yeah, uh, she just failed first aid twice.
Dude, you can only first aid.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah fuck, how hard did it put on a band-aid or a
tourniquet?

Speaker 1 (17:54):
bro, it's probably the, the theory part of it that
she couldn't do.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Oh, so um dude, it's not that hard.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
It's not that hard dude but she, you can only fail
once.
Pack the wound the second timeyou fail anything, any learning
domain, you're done well, how?

Speaker 2 (18:17):
how was your first?
I don't want to say how wasyour first day on the job, just
I want you to walk me through islike what's the process?
You show up into a formation ornot, a formation into a class,
the briefings that the sergeantsdo, or whatever.
Okay, what's that?

Speaker 1 (18:29):
like my first day.
Uh, when I graduated sorry, thenext week I was assigned to
like admin admin yeah, so theyweren't going to put me out on
the streets first.
They wanted me to fill out morepaperwork your training out of
the way yeah, I was gonna.
if there was a counter call atthe front desk of the police
department, I would would gowith that officer and see how
they handled it, start to getexperience, sit in in the
communication center or dispatchthings like that and then

(18:53):
briefing it would start at thebeginning of each shift.
So it was the shifts over there.
I don't know if they're stillthe same.
It was either 7 am or 7 pm werethe starts.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
They were 12-hour shifts 12-hour shifts.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
They were 12 hour shifts, 12 hour shifts, 12 hour
shifts central pd, central pd.
I never knew that, dude.
Yeah, three on, one off, fouron and then three off.
No, sorry, three on one weekfour off, and then you come back
to four.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Three off, it would.
That's kind of shitty dude.
Maybe the time's off is cool,but I don't know about fucking
12 hours on the clock and then,when they held you over, it was
like well, how can they hold youover?
How many hours are they holdingyou over for?

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, you can only work a total of 16.
But if a mass event happens,you're there freaking hasta que
till the wheels fall off bro.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
So how many cops give me an approximate?
How many police officers arethere in El Centro PD?

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Back then each team had like four or five, if they
were lucky, four teams, 20,maybe 20, 25.
That's a little bit dude, dude,and I get it, it's.
South Central PD but there wasa time where it was only.
They would divide El Centrointo two beats West Beat and the
East Beat and they would use8th Street as a divide 8th?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, I was about to ask you that question right now.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
So anything on the west beat was assigned to two
officers the whole west side ofel centro, according to us and
then the other east side was two, which is the worst part of el
centro it was the east side.
Back then the east side, northside, centro was pretty bad yeah
, well, sorry, the east side ofthe beat for us, um, north side
wasn't as active.
I had heard from other veteranofficers that it had been really
bad before.
Yeah, like on, I still rememberthe names calvary street, north

(20:31):
, north fourth street, kind ofgetting almost into imperial and
all that.
Those were really bad, but soyou seen the movie?
End of watch yeah, man love it.
I bet you do, bro, is it?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
I watched in the academy you watched it in the
academy.
That movie didn't come out in2013,.
Did it?
Yeah, man, it was out.
It's been out for a long timethen, yeah, that shit motivate
you, or what it did?
So is that how?
I mean, I'm not.
Clearly, it's probably not likea movie, but do you get your
weapons?
Where do you get your weaponsfrom?
How does this Walk me?
Having your weapons going,maybe a locker room?

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, we have a locker room.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
What do you put in the locker?

Speaker 1 (21:07):
I would keep my gun there Sometimes.
What kind of gun was it?
It was a H&K 45.
That was a department issue 45caliber 45 caliber.
Holy shit, dude, stopping power.
Yeah, so we would carry that.
I would take my taser home withme so I could charge it at home
.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Even though you had never been tased.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Even though I'd never been tased, I knew how to aim
it.
I knew how to pull the trigger.
Man, that's all we need.
I would take my radio home tocharge it at home, but
everything else was in there.
I would have an extra set ofuniforms.
My bulletproof vest was inthere, so I'd get there 20, 15
minutes before roll call and puteverything on.
Boom, boom, boom.
What was the point of having anextra uniform in there?

(21:48):
In case it like ripped duringthe shift or something like that
, I could go change Smart and ithappens.
One time I got caught up in afence and you know you got
caught up in a fence.
Yeah, chasing somebody, chasingsomebody Tweaker.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, oh, bro, there's a lot those there, bro,
I'm from brawley, bro, you know.
Yeah, exactly, dude, so oh shit, so uh, it's probably my
favorite interview, bro, I couldtell you some crazy shit.
Man, it's funny so okay, nowholy shit.
You said uh h and k 45.

(22:20):
What about a long rifle?

Speaker 1 (22:21):
uh, every, every patrol unit, like the cars, had
a ar-15 and a shotgun in there.
So it was your job to before.
You made it loaded and ready toclear it.
Look, make sure everything'sfunctioning.
Pull the trigger, obviouslywithout anything in it, make
sure it's functioning and thenhave it ready in case you need
it did anybody ever have anegligent discharge and shoot a

(22:42):
fucking round when they weren'tsupposed to?
Well, uh, it was before my time, but there was a guy who shot
his finger off.
Sounds about right.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Was there a sight or anything?
An optic on your rifle?
No, but now they do.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh yeah, but before no, some of them had it.
The officers that were alsoassigned to SWAT were able to
carry their MP5s, or whateverthey called.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
So 25 approximately cops in the department.
How is half of that on SWAT, ora handful of that, like?

Speaker 1 (23:14):
12 of them, maybe 12 of them.
Yeah, I might be wrong on thenumbers, it might be 30, you
know, give or take, just a roughestimate.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
So would you say half of them are SWAT, or not less
than half.
No, like about 10, dude, okay,it's not that big of a.
Now.
Did you know who the SWAT teamofficers were?
Did you know who the SWAT guyswere?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what did you think of them?

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I was like dude, these guys are Legit Elite.
Yeah, man, their tactics aredifferent.
Their Well is higher than thenormal officers.
It has to be because theirqualifications are.
The room for failure is a lotsmaller than regular officers
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, man, did you have any aspirations to become
SWAT?

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, it's funny because we'll talk about it
later, but when I started myinternal affairs investigation,
the sergeant that actually was apart of that, he was the one
that told me hey, man, startgetting ready, you're squared
away.
He wanted me to try out for itand I wanted to.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Dude, you would have been good at it, bro.
No, but again, things happenfor a reason.
So I mean just your demeanorman, because it's more to SWAT
than just being a big musclehead kicking in doors.
Right, you got to be cool, calmand collective, yeah, um, so
any incidents that stand out toyou.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
You said there was some wild times right there in
el centro uh, well, you knowwhat, and uh, I almost didn't
make it through field trainingman.
Why?
What happened?
I was doing good, I was squaredaway.
And then one day I get, I getdispatched with my training
officer to and if he hears thishe'll know he was so mad at me
that night.
Yeah, ramos, he's legit man,that guy before my time.

(24:58):
He's been around a long time.
He got shot in the face.
Man in el centro, no central,damn, he's legit.
You need backup.
That's somebody you want therefor sure.
So he's a good training officer, very relaxed until you fucked
up, you know.
So you get dispatched tosomebody who's seen a guy beat
the hell out of a girl in frontof a motel at 7th and adams, and

(25:20):
we're at the station.
7th and adams isn't that farfrom 12th and main, where, where
the police department is.
What park is there right there?
Adams Park, adams Park, butthat's just north of Adams Park,
right across there's a I forgetwhat the, the patio motel,
something like that.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, those are the ones you can rent by the hour or
some shit.
Cheap fucking hookers yeahexactly.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
So I get there and the reporting party's saying
like, hey, I see him, him, he'sin the middle of the parking lot
beating the hell out of her.
So we get there.
And as soon as we get there, wesee the guy taking off
northbound on the on whateverstreet that was on foot no on a
bike, okay, yeah, there's a lotmore bike riders than you'll
ever see you're forgetting, bro,I'm from the valley.
Yeah, fucking, I'm picturing itso he's taking off and I

(26:04):
remember we take off like, uh,he turns on Woodward or
something like that, from 6thStreet eastbound to 5th Street
on Woodward and we're going, andthen he turns around and he
pulls out a revolver and startswaving it in the air.
Dude, and I'm going to behonest, dude, I got scared,
shitless dude.
I slammed the brakes and Ramoslooks at me.

(26:26):
He's like what the fuck are youdoing?
He gets out of the car and hedraws down.
So I get out too.
The guy's still going.
He's like get back in the car,let's fucking go.
Blah, blah, blah.
So the guy turns off on 6thStreet or 5th Street and when we
go in behind him we lose him.
That's right, it's 6th Streetnow that I remember, because
Kennedy School is right pastthose tracks, right there, and

(26:47):
we lost him right there, dude.
So at that point he doesn'thave much time to argue with me.
We got to find this guy,whatever.
Obviously, this whole time wecalled out he has a gun.
He pulled out a gun.
He had recognized him fromprior police contacts with him.
His name was Mark Anthony Ayala.
And we lost him, dude.

(27:08):
So then we called everybody in,we set up a perimeter and then
we walked down in between therailroad tracks and there's a
little dirt road and we do likea little, what is it called?
Like a little triangleformation, something like that,
a wedge.
Yeah, there you go.
So we go, and then somebody'swatching this side, somebody's
watching the windows, and we godown and see if we find him, and
if we find him, see the gun youknow, you got to do what you

(27:30):
got to do, couldn't find him.
We went to an apartment of oneof his known associates and he
wouldn't let us in.
So we knew, you know he's inthere, but there's not much you
can do, unfortunately, becauseyou didn't see him go in there.
So we go in there.
I'm sorry.
We go back to the policedepartment.
I get my ass handed to me.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Real quick.
What about exigentcircumstances?
Still, you can't.
No, because we didn'tphysically see him.
Okay, yeah, yeah, then you'd beviolating all kinds of rights.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
The whole case is going to go down the drain if it
goes to court If you end upshooting the guy.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Or accidentally shooting somebody else.
Yeah, dude, you know what Imean.
Yeah, that's so.
Then you get back to the policestation.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Your ramos lights you up, bro.
Yeah, he's like like that'sabsolutely not that day.
I think it was like the lastone of the last days of my week,
and every week you get, uh, areview for your.
Oh man, that was the worstreview I ever got.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
But let me be realistic though, man.
That's not an easy call to nahmotherfucker waving a revolver.
You weren't necessarily wrongfor slamming the brakes.
What else are you supposed todo?

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Well, if I slam the brakes, I'm a sitting duck.
If he turns around and shoots.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Well, you don't you?
I mean realistically, bro, youhave less.
You made a decision.
You made a decision.
The decision was to fuckingslam on the brakes.
Or was he pissed that the dudetook off, got away?

Speaker 1 (28:50):
no, I think it's because he had, because he's
been in, obviously got shot,he's had to.
He's had a couple other yeah umshootings also, so he kind of
had more experience than me, soobviously in his mind he was
like dude, slam the other pedalnext time and, just you know,
hit him interesting.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
No, I see it yeah, yeah, yeah, and that would have
been 100 justifiable.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
You know, it is what it is.
Holy shit dude.
So the guy gets lost.
I go home, I can't sleep youcan't sleep because of the
adrenaline or because you werefeeling, because I was like dude
, I missed, I messed up, youknow, and I kind of slept a
couple hours that day and I wentback to work that night.
I go back to work that night, Iwalk into the police department
through the back door where weall parked and walked in and
there's coffee spilled on thefloor and I was like they found

(29:28):
them.
Dude, they ran out of here andI turned on the radio and
they're all in that area wherewe lost them.
Turns out there had been ashooting because they found him
and he tried taking a taxi cabdriver hostage, took him out why
was there coffee on the floor?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
everybody just jumped up and yeah, dude, because that
was going to bring me to mynext question.
El Centro is extremely small.
How long does it take for youto go from, get a call and get
to a location?

Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh, dude, this is a good part, I think, of being in
a small city like that.
If somebody calls for help,you're like minutes away, dude,
and minutes could be a long timedude.
I've been in fights where I'mlike dude, where is everybody,
bro?
But we have Imperial PD rightthere too.
So there was times where Icalled for help during a fight
and they would show up too dude,imperial PD, imperial PD who do
you call your dispatch?

(30:14):
I would just call out Like if Iget in an active fight with
somebody, I would just the codewas 1018.
Officer needs help immediately.
Something's going on, you needbackup.
You need backup so yourpartners are coming in.
But then at times, Imperial, wewere on the same channel, so
Imperial PD would hear andthey're like boom, send somebody
.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Was there much communication between San Diego
PD or Brawley PD, calexico PD,imperial PD and San Diego?

Speaker 1 (30:42):
There was open communication.
It would just depend on you If,if it was open communication,
it would just depend on you Ifyou wanted to switch the channel
on the radio to hear the wholecounty calls.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
What about Sheriff Highway Patrol or Border Patrol?

Speaker 1 (30:52):
We're all part of the same.
It's called the Spillman system, what they used to use.
I don't know what they use now.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
But you could open up your filters to see all the
calls, which would help you know, like if something's going on
nearby in the city, at least youknow what you're going to
respond to if something hits thefan.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
You know that's very interesting dude.
Any other?
Oh, okay, okay, we'll kind ofmaybe transition.
Now you mentioned a case yousaid Samson.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
Oh yeah, man, I wasn't involved in this case,
but I was already employed atthe police department.
You were already employed, Iwas already there, I was already
on patrol, you were alreadyemployed, I was already there I
was already on patrol, so youwere working during this big
case of this.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Tell us what that case was about or what the
incident.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
To the best of my ability, from the best of your
ability, bro.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
don't elaborate or don't.
No, you know what I mean, Justfrom.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
I mean, there's a video online that people can see
.
All you have to do is type inCharles Sampson City of El
Centro Police Department andyou'll be able to see the video
that the judge ordered to bereleased to the public.
Oh, the body-worn camera.
The body-worn camera.
They pulled this man over.
This was the shift before me.
I was coming in that followingmorning to patrol 7 am, so the

(31:59):
shift the night before I getthere.
Anyways, later on, now that Iknow everything, I guess they
pulled this man over.
Uh, he was on probation fordrugs.
He was on probation for drugs,um, and I think they had some
inside information, ciinformation that he uh had drugs

(32:20):
with him or in the car orwhatever you know.
So they pull them over.
They're like hey, obviouslyyou're awake, we're going to go
do a probation compliance checkat your house.
It was like midnight, it wascold you know it gets cold
sometimes down in the valleyLike it was during the winter.
But when they get there theydon't take him into the house
and they put him in the patrolunit.
Throughout the whole shebang,what they were doing, the search

(32:45):
or whatever, they couldn't findanything.
So they go back and they bringhim in like hey, man, just tell
us where the dope is, whatever.
And the guy you could tell waslike sweating, profusely,
shivering stuff like thatfalling over appliances like the
machine washer and stuff Istill remember.
And the family members arethere and they hate calling
ambulance.
You know he's not feeling goodand one of the officers decides

(33:07):
to say no, well, he's justputting on a show because he
doesn't want to get caught orwhatever.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Now, is that officer the one we were talking about
earlier?
Yeah, man, no way.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
If I remember correctly and you guys can go
see the video he says hey man,no matter what kind of show you
put on, we're still going tofind something.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Hold on, hold, on, hold on hold on.
There's an actual video of thatguy saying it on the.
What do you have to type on the?
Is it on?

Speaker 1 (33:32):
YouTube.
Yeah, it's on YouTube likeCharles Sampson, El Centro
Police Department, somethinglike that, Charles.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Sampson, el Centro Police Department.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Trust me this story it gets to the point to where
him and the other officers onscene call dispatch and say, hey
, if they call for an ambulance,don't send it oh, this is
freaking beautiful and uh,pauling at the same exact time.
So whatever they go, they don'tfind anything.
Turns out this guy.
They arrest him for God knowswhat and they turn him over to

(34:13):
another officer to take to thehospital.
He takes him to the hospital inthe back of his car.
I remember seeing the video.
He pulls into the emergency theER.
When he comes out holy shit,this guy's not breathing in the
back of my car.
Into the emergency the ER.
When he comes out, holy shit,this guy's not breathing in the
back of my car.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
So that officer that told the guy stop putting on a
show and called the dispatch,said don't call an ambulance.
Where's he at now?

Speaker 1 (34:37):
He is a lieutenant or captain with the El Centro
Police Department.
Felicidades, compa.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
I love my job, bro.
Yeah, this is the freakingtruth.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
yeah, it's the truth later on there's a camera in the
back of the car where they hadthe guy sequestered when they
were searching the car showsthat he pulled something out of
his pocket I recall, I recallwatching that video I mean, yeah
, so dude, wow, that was a bigincident.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Now I don't want you to elaborate, you don't have to
go into details, but was thedepartment pretty concerned
about that incident within?

Speaker 1 (35:15):
the department they were, but I remember the
higher-ups going to like thedispatchers hey, we got your
back, you guys are going to beall right, whatever, but
obviously it doesn't look sogood, you know.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
I mean, yeah, it didn't look good at all,
especially a small town, bro,everybody knows everybody.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
I don't remember exactly what time it was, but it
was a black gentleman, you know.
So it doesn't help the opticsat all either.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yep, yep, yep, dude For sure.
So this whole time you wereemployed, were you enjoying your
?

Speaker 1 (35:45):
job.
Yeah, man, I loved it.
Every time they called me forovertime I was like sign me up,
dude.
Really, yeah, I would work likespecial details, federal grant
overtime details, where we wouldpatrol 111, because obviously
you know the border's there soyou have a lot of chances of
stopping a car, finding dope.
Did that ever happen?
I did once with this guy too,with this officer.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Oh, you did was it a random?
You pulled somebody over andthey had dope in the yeah, yeah
it was.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Uh, I think he.
I'm sure he had moreconnections, you know he had
feds and stuff like that, somaybe he knew what he was
looking for.
Okay, he called me over as atranslator and the guy was kind
of playing dumb.
He had stopped him on dogwood.
I'm going to a birthday party,but you could tell, you could
tell he's dressed out buchon,you know.
Oh, he was the guy that wepulled over, yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Straight freaking.
End of watch.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Ajá, no me le faltaba el sombrero.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Y los botas de vestruz Andale.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Well they had the what is it?
The little gyms.
I'm just going to a birthdayparty.
Brought the dog.
The dog Did he have a nice ride?
It was okay, it was, I don'tremember it sticking out that
much, but he had like birthdaypresents or whatever.
Dude, did he have a gun?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
No, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Pounds and pounds of crystal meth, dude Pounds and
the little gift they party.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
No way, dude, Holy shit bro.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
So that was my.
I was like dude, holy crap, andI had already started learning.
Other officers had startedteaching me how to document like
narcotics cases and stuff likethat.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
So yeah, man, wow bro , what was your favorite part of
the job?
Dude?
Was it drug bust?
Was it getting DUI guys off thestreet?
Gang members what was yourfavorite?

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Well, like drugs and gangs, I would say.
But gangs weren't even that biganymore.
I don't think Right, I feltlike they were bigger when I was
in high school, you know, andthat hadn't been that long ago,
but it had kind of died off alittle bit.
I think it was a little bit ofa lot of them going to prison,
probably, or Differentgeneration yeah, man.
So we were going through like alittle there's more like

(37:50):
veteranos type of thing.
Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, man,that's what I really liked and I
started really digging intothat I would.
I knew which ones were theareas or the houses that were
selling dope.
So if you catch a certainamount of people coming out of
there, you could you have enoughprobable cause for a warrant to
hit the house if you can gethim to talk uh, I grew up in
brawley.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
In the house next to me used to sell fucking heroin
out the window for sure.
There you go.
Um, do you guys need a lot ofinformation to be to put a
warrant together?
I mean, I'm sure you guys knowwho's selling dope right and you
guys don't stop them every day.
What did you just wait till youget tired of them?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
well, what I was, what I was told is.
All you need is two people totell you they got it from the
same house.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
And then you could write it, have a judge sign off
on it and if the judge thinksit's okay, boom, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
So now we're going to kind of transition into you're
loving your job, bro.
You're doing it, you're doingit.
You've never been in troublebefore, right.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Nah, man, Like I got in trouble once, like for
showing up late to a shift.
Yeah, that's nothing, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
But other than that there was no trouble really.
So walk us through.
This call Domestic violence.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Domestic violence.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Walk us through the beginning of this incident.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
So I get assigned as primary officer.
Dispatch puts out my badgenumber was 368.
It was like 368, come in, goahead.
Respond to this possible 415.
Domestic 415 is disturbance inthe state of california, or I
think.
And then they also label it asa possible 243, possible battery
.
The neighbors calling from oneof the apartments that they're

(39:27):
next door neighbors.
You could hear what is possiblya physical altercation.
Blah, blah, blah.
So here I go.
It's on the 400 block of Heil,and I only know that because I
was reading my notes earlier andbefore I show up the other
officer at that time who wasassigned as my cover officer.
His name is James Thompson.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
So that officer from the story earlier that refused
to give that Samson guy medicalaid and stopped the paramedics
from coming via dispatch wasyour partner that evening.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
He was the cover officer assigned.
There's a couple guys, thecover officer, yeah, guys.
The cover officer, yeah, um.
So for domestic disputes, Ibelieve are still up there with
the most dangerous things that apolice officer can respond to,
right.
So a potential domestic youalways send to okay, because it
could you know it gets crazyreal quick.
So, um, uh, yeah, he was one ofthe three officers involved that

(40:26):
night of Mr Sampson'sunfortunate death.
He shows up first and he putsout over the air where he's out
with this gentleman, puts outthe name and I was like I
remember the guy Because I hadarrested him a couple months
before for a gun charge.
He gets there and then I getthere right after he's talking

(40:46):
to the guy outside the female,which I also knew from previous
arrests and police contacts.
He gets there and then I getthere right after he's talking
to the guy outside the female,which I also knew from previous
arrests and police contacts.
He's like he's not giving meanything, like my partner is
saying like he's not giving meanything.
So I pull him over to the sideand my hey man, what's going on?
And he knew me.
You know he knew we had a jobto do.
Were you a younger dude or olderdude?
He was younger than me, really,yeah, but unfortunately he was.

(41:09):
His dad also had a rap sheet.
You know, it was just a familytype of thing, unfortunately,
but excuse me, then the Istarted talking to him and he's
like oh no, I guess if Iremember correctly, it was a
dispute about who was cleaningor whatever, but you know, I

(41:31):
mean domestic were they living?

Speaker 2 (41:32):
were they living together?

Speaker 1 (41:33):
They had a kid and everything.
Oh shit, yeah.
So was the kid present?
Um, not that I recall.
No, no, I can't remember Ihadn't responded to calls
regarding that kid.
They were just trouble man backthen, like the kid had tested
positive for meth one day at theand I had to respond to the
hospital and I had to chargethem with like endangerment of a
child.

(41:54):
So it's not a nice household tobe in.
I know these guys are not starcitizens, but I get it.
So I started doing my thing and, uh, finally the girl lets us
into the house and we startdoing our thing and I start once
.
Once they tell me like hedidn't hit me, she didn't hit me
, whatever.
There's no other witnesses.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Hey guys, consider becoming a patron, where you
will get first exclusive dibs onthe video before it airs to the
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that you have in mind.
So that's also another way tosupport the channel.
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Appreciate all of you.
Keep pushing forward.
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Speaker 1 (42:34):
And the couple's not saying he pushed me, she pushed
me, he hit me.
There's not really much I cando.
So I then at this point I knowsomething happened.
I know something happened, butI can't prove it.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
You know, because you just have a feeling and they're
acting weird yeah they'reacting weird.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Thompson's saying I still think this is a domestic
and I'm like me too.
Right, but I don't have anyproof.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
And she's not saying hey, beat me up.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Usually they don't say man, yeah, usually they're
like you're going to take myvato to jail, you know.
So anyways, back then, whensomebody was on probation for a
gun charge, there's a FourthAmendment waiver and back then
you could go through theirphones.
Now you can't, now you have towrite a search warrant for their
phones.
I didn't even know that.
Yeah, dude, so before it's likeokay, if it's here, boom.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Just the phones, can you still?

Speaker 1 (43:24):
go into their houses.
I can go into their houses andtheir living spaces, but the
phones, now they were.
That's interesting.
That's, that's information.
Yeah, as long as it as uh, Idon't think it's changed.
But last I heard now you haveto write a search warrant for
the phone.
Okay, so back then, since Ididn't, I went through his phone
.
While I was looking through hisphone, I find that he's selling
marijuana out of his house.

(43:45):
He has large amounts ofmarijuana, scales, money, pay
O-sheets on his phone.
So I was like you know what,I'm going to remove the problem.
He's coming with me.
You know, smart Felony, felony,it's a felony.
Well, back then it was Right,now maybe not, but I took him
and as I was looking through hisphone, I had seen that he was

(44:06):
buying guns, trying to buy gunsfrom somebody named.
I forget the guy's name.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Let's not say his name, no.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, right, right, right, Um.
So I was like wow, when I tookhim, I was like, hey man, I see
these other messages Likewhere's the guns, Like oh no, I
don't have a gun.
Blah, blah, blah, we didn'tfind a gun.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Was that dude calm during all of this?
Was he tripping?
Was?

Speaker 1 (44:29):
he high, he would always give us like a little bit
of attitude, not high.
Always give us some attitude,but never he wasn't a fighter.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Just playing chill yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Just sometimes he'd give attitude, but honestly, him
at the station.
This is what's going on.
Do you know why you're?

Speaker 2 (44:51):
here and nope, that was it.
I took him, you mirandized himand he didn't.
He didn't really.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Took him to imperial county jail the station first,
and then to imperial county jailI know that process because
I've been arrested yeah, and Iwent, I remember seeing your
story, el centro station.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Then they took me to the jail.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, so I go home, I turn in my report, I get signed
off, and then I get a call thenext day from the patrol
sergeant the next day and he'slike hey, I just read your
report, I just approved it,no-transcript with you.

(45:36):
And he approved my overtime.
Boom Came back in.
Sweet dude.
So this is my first searchwarrant, sweet bro.
Yeah, you know, like I'm acouple years in, that was not
your first felony arrest, no,okay, no, no, I had a couple.
I was very proactive as apolice officer pulling cars over
you know that's just who I was.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
That's probably why you got fired bro.
They don't like proactive cops.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Not anymore.
Exactly, I probably wouldn'tmake it now, if I'm honest with
you.
Find another reason to can meyeah.
Reason to can me yeah.
So we do the search warrant, wewrite it.
He teaches me how to write it.
I use one of his old searchwarrants as a go-by go to the
judge.
Judge signs off on it.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Boom, we hit the house the next day in imperial
you hit the house of the guy onthe text message for the guns?
Yes, and he lived in el centroas well.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
He lived in imperial.
Okay, he lives in imperial,yeah, but at this time we had
already made contact with theBorder Street Interdiction Team,
or whatever they used to callit.
They all helped us.
Dude, they did surveillance onthe house, everything.
We hit the house, we find twoguns.
Boom, take the guy too.
So I did a lot of work for allthis.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Wow, dude, I didn't even know all this shit.
This is getting juicy.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
So you're looking like a hero, I guess, or at
least somebody who's out thereto do their job, you know right?
Uh, this was february of 2015and then in like oh man, if I
remember correctly august, I getlike a memorandum.
Somebody hands it to me I don'tremember who that there.
There's an intent toinvestigate me administratively
for failure to investigate thedomestic violence from the
original call.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
I was like all right.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Well, I mean, I got nothing to hide.
So I went to one of my closefriends who at the time was, I
think, the union president orhad been Straight squared away
guy dude Now he works out here Istill stay in contact with him
and I was like, oh, I'll just goto this interrogation by myself
.
He was like, nah, bro, we werepaying union dues for a reason.

(47:30):
Let me call your union rep.
So we faxed it, called me up,prepare, go to the first
interview.
A couple weeks later, monthslater, I don't remember and they
asked me a lot about her and acut on her lip came into
question and, like I told youbefore, we talked like, oh, I'm

(47:51):
going to say right off the bat,I missed the dude.
She had a cut on her lip, shehad a cut on her lip and I
missed it and I didn't takepictures of it, which, hindsight
, 2020, I should have no excuses.
But I got tunnel visioned intothe whole drug arrest and I
still took him out, or whatever.
But I got tunnel visioned intothe whole drug arrest and I
still took him out, or whatever.
And before that first interview, the video was so long that we

(48:12):
my, my attorney and I we wentover it step by step but we
didn't do the whole thing and wemissed the part where the cut
was on.
So I finished my firstinterview.
I'm sorry.
I finished my first interviewand I'm like, okay, I'm cool.
You know, like I answeredeverything, like I don't
remember seeing a.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
I didn't remember seeing a cut on her lip at that
point because I didn't if youdid see a cut on her lip that
night, what actions would youhave taken?

Speaker 1 (48:39):
just document it?
There's no way.
How can I prove that he gavethat to her, correct, you know?
And later on in the video itshows that th Thompson asked her
and she's like I fell down thestairs, okay, well, she fell
down the stairs, right, if Isent there?
There's no way.
There's no way you can sendthat to get filed.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Right, it wasn't the DA.
You're saying the DA is notgoing to pick it up.
There's no way.
Chapped lips or whatever.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
yeah, fucking cracked lips I mean it was probably him
right.
But it's not what you know,it's what you can prove now.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
It wasn't from after the, in hindsight, the video
footage.
Was it discolored?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
was it just no, you could see, there was something
on there and I saw it on thevideo.
You could tell on the video.
Yeah, man, but the night of.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
You didn't see it, you overlooked it, and it
happens, bro.
Human error, yeah, a lot goingon, and let's be realistic, it's
.
But what I want to know is,from what it seems to me is like
somebody launched aninvestigation into you, right,
and I kind of have an idea whothat is.
I think your feelings arecorrect.
That is scandalous, bro, andthat is disgusting, um, and if I

(49:44):
think it's because they werejealous that you were getting
this attention, from myperspective, bro, as an hey,
this youngster's coming in andtaking the spotlight.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Wow, dude, that's crazy, because he used to do a
lot for the department.
Dude, that guy was reallyactive in busting people with
drugs.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Oh man, so during this time that you're under
investigation, are you stillworking or are you on admin
leave?

Speaker 1 (50:07):
No, no, no, You're working.
No, I'm working.
I finished the first interview.
I still go back on patrol.
Were you married?
No man, I didn't even know mywife at this point.
You were single.
I was single.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Well, that's a plus.
You said you were single andyou had no kids.
You know, did you think it wasthat serious?

Speaker 1 (50:25):
No man, until I got the second notice of another
interview where theyspecifically said we're calling
you in because we'reinvestigating dishonesty on your
part.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Okay, cool, walk me through this part.
Your first investigationinterview was due to you.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Failure to document a domestic dispute correctly.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Failure to document a domestic dispute correctly.
Righture to document a domesticdispute correctly, right.
And this is typical in all lawenforcement.
Bro, this is typical inCalifornia Department of
Corrections.
They'll bring you in andinterview you for something and
the next thing you know they'llflip your words around and say
you're dishonest.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, man.
So they called me in for thesecond one.
I sent it to the attorney andhe's like what do they mean?
Even.
He's like what do they mean?
He, even he was like what thehell is going on, man, this,
this shouldn't even have gonethis far.
He has more experiencerepresenting police officers at
this point, of course, and whenI go into the interview, the
first thing the sergeant doeshe's like hey, he directs.

(51:20):
Both of us go look at this partof the video.
And we're like okay, so we goback, we look at it and lo and
behold, that's what shows me,noticing the cut that night on
the body camera you noticing thecut that night on the?
body, yeah, yeah, yeah why?

Speaker 2 (51:35):
did you make a comment?

Speaker 1 (51:36):
yes, what'd you say?
I said what's up with that cuton your lip?
I said that.
So, like I said from thebeginning, I, if I called it out
, I should have just said therewas a cut on her lip, and it
would have saved me this wholething.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
But what were they getting?
Did you go on the microphonesaying you didn't see it that
night?

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Yeah, I said I don't recall there was a cut on her
lip, on her that night, becausebefore that, like I said, my
attorney and I reviewed thevideo, right, and we just didn't
go through that part.
So when we got back to theinterview room for the second
one, I was like hey man, this isthe first time since that night
that I see that part of thevideo.
And I was like straight up, Iwas like I just didn't remember
that part and there's no reasonfor me to try to cover anything

(52:19):
up.
After all the work I did, if Iwas trying to not document
something I wouldn't have doneanything.
I get it, bro.
Document something, I wouldn'thave done anything.
I get it, bro.
So we go through the wholeprocess and I we specifically
tell him like, hey man, we Ireviewed it with my attorney, we
were both there.
We didn't see that part.
Um, I mean, obviously it'sthere.
You know, like I can't say it'snot on the video, but I just

(52:42):
didn't remember, I don't recallseeing it until now that I've
that you directed me to look atthat part and that was it, you
know.
And then he said, he told mespecifically, cruz, you're going
to be all right.
Who said that?
The sergeant that wasinterviewing me?

Speaker 2 (52:56):
who does that sergeant work for the El Centro
PD?

Speaker 1 (52:59):
What is he?
Internal affairs?
At that time he was a detectivesergeant, slash internal
affairs or patrol, I think.
I don't remember.
Since it's such a smalldepartment, you don't have
people assigned to the specific,so they kind of have dual roles
.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
And he said, cruz, you're going to be all right,
you're going to be all rightAfter your second interview for
dishonesty, why be all right?

Speaker 1 (53:24):
after your second interview, after my second
interview why do you?
Think he said that or did hethink you were going to be?

Speaker 2 (53:26):
all right, he probably thought I was.
I don't.
I don't think he meant any illintent, right, um so, yeah, was
it above his call like toultimately terminate you?
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:32):
uh, so that happened, I don't remember exactly when,
but then in like november, likethe end of november, one day at
the end of my shift, I, uh, Ithe call right when I'm going to
go home and say, hey, thecommander wants to talk to you.
I was like, all right, I didn'tthink much of it.
man like I said I go in thereand they serve me with the memo
of intern to terminate and Ihave to take off my badge.

(53:55):
Take everything After yourshift.
Yeah, right, when it was goingto end After your shift.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yeah, right, when it was going to end After your
shift.
So they probably knew they weregoing to shit.
Can you fire you?

Speaker 1 (54:03):
and they let you finish up your shift.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Yeah, that's wrong dude.
I don't understand why there'sthese types of processes, so I
had to go through that.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
I had to go through the equipment sergeant.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
What?
When did they slide a memoacross the desk, did he?

Speaker 1 (54:20):
tell you hey, we're, we're.
They slid a memo, I read it, Isat down and I was like intent
to terminate.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
What happened?
Did you get tunnel vision?
Was it like surreal?
Did you get lightheaded Were?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
you confused.
I was confused.
I was like what do you mean?
Like in my mind I'm like intentto terminate.
In my mind I'm like attemptedterminate.
Like commander, what the hell?
He's like yeah, man.
And so they sent me to thesergeant.
The other sergeant's officerwas in charge of equipment, took
my belt off.
He's like please turn aroundand unload your firearm.
Unloaded it, cleared it, turnedit in.

(54:51):
I had to get followed out ofthe police department, picked up
all my stuff from the locker.
They followed me home.
They followed you home.
Yeah, because they had torecover all their equipment that
I had at my house.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
I'm on my way home.
I called my mom and I, honestly, man, I was crying on the way
home, right, because I didn't.
You know, I didn't know, Ididn't know what the hell was
going on.
And my mom's like stop crying,when you get home, don't let him
see you crying.
You can cry all you want whenthey're gone.
So I get there and my mom'swaiting for us outside.
I go in there, give them theirequipment.
They're outside of my house,you know.

(55:26):
I give them my stuff and assoon as I close the door, man, I
just break down with my mom.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Was that guy Thompson there when they waited for you?

Speaker 1 (55:35):
Pat, no, it was one of my old FTOs and the equipment
sergeant.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Is anybody saying anything to you at this time, or
is it just?

Speaker 1 (55:45):
awkward silence.
No, I remember when I waswalking to the locker room, it
was my FTO.
They just tasked him with justfollowing me, you know.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
The FTO that chewed your ass out.
Yeah, oh man.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
But you could tell his demeanor was he was upset
man, he wasn't happy about it,right?
So I looked at him and I saidRichie, and he was like I know,
man, but don't say anything.
Remember, you can't sayanything.
I was like I know, right.
So that was it and I startedfighting it.

(56:23):
Hearings, so you wereterminated, effective that date
of random, placed on admin leavefirst, for how long?
With intent to terminate forabout until January, january.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Were you still receiving a paycheck?

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Yeah, I had to report every day.
They'll call and report.
I had to stay within Countylines.
No way, yeah I.
If I got a subpoena, they wouldlet me know and I would have to
go to the court you were livingalone.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Oh no, I was at my mom's.
You're living at your mom's.
What kind of thoughts weregoing through your head, bro?
Uh I.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
They didn't sink in.
At first I was like there's noway, like there's a process,
there's a police officer bill ofrights, which I heard one of
your other guests talk to youabout.
This gentleman, yeah, you havea right to a skelly hearing,
correct?
Uh, I had my skelly hearingwith the chief.
Didn't work.
I went to the personnel ofappeals boards with the city of
el centro.
They violated their rules.

(57:13):
They should have.
They should have had like fourpeople, I think, on the panel
got one guy who decided toobviously go in their favor, the
attorney they hired to goagainst me.
When we walked outside of thathearing he shook my hand.
He's like I'm sorry, man, Idon't know why this is happening
to you.
Their attorney, they knew, bro,of course.
So the arbitration, thearbitration hearing, was a joke,

(57:36):
honestly.
They tried to.
They tried to slap a felony onme during that.
No fucking way, dude they triedto say that I falsified some of
the words on my search warrant.
So that's an official document,so that would have been a
felony.
But thank God, when we playedthe whole video in the hearing
it showed that what I wrote wastrue.

(57:57):
Yeah, man, it was not.
We went to court at the like Iwas showing you earlier.
We went in front of a judge.
Were you feeling?
Anxiety during this, oh dude, Iwas like depression, depression
, hard bro.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Now 2020 I'm like dude, yeah, look, tell us in
hindsight what kind of emotionsyou were going through.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
I was depressed, I didn't.
I was like sleeping a lot, Ididn't.
I didn't want to like, do a lot, you know, like I didn't.
I didn't get to a point where Ididn't want to be here, you
know.
But you were isolating.
You probably didn't want to goout.
I was isolating, not wanting togo out.

(58:40):
I the night that that happenedto me.
Dude, I'll never forget thatdude, one of my, one of my
partners, he went to my house tocheck on me.
That's a good dude.
Yeah, I'll never forget that.
And I, you know who you are,bro, um, I, the one thing about
all this all my partners, dude,my partners that really know me,
yeah, they've been with mestill, dude, that's awesome.
I used to live with one of themeven after that.
Like that speaks volumes.

(59:02):
You know what I mean.
Yeah, so it.
It took a long time.
Uh, I like I said hindsight man, like even my one of my friends
, man who was also in the marinecorps deployed twice to iraq,
purple heart, I remember hewould call me because he was my
trainer at the gym.
I was at the time with hiscousin, was the owner of the gym
.
He's like hey, vente, vente,vente.
Yeah, get me out of my house,you know right.

(59:24):
So I don't forget that stuff,you know, and I always tell him
when I can.
I'm like dude.
I don't forget how you and yourcousin were checking up on me
when I was not doing all right.
Did you have anger andresentment towards the
department, bro, for the longesttime?
For the longest time, even thismorning, when I was reading on
all like my stuff, I was likedude, you guys.
Hindsight 2020.
If, if, if I was in the placeof my sergeant that night,

(59:46):
because, remember, I told you,uh, thompson, the whole reason
this started was becausethompson went to the sergeant
that night.
Hey, cruz messed that.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Call up did was that.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
It was that revealed in the investigation process
yeah, when I read the documentsI was like, like this guy went
dude.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Okay, let me give you guys a summary man the officer
from El Centro PD that missedthe call or let the dude die and
fucking, I mean it's ondocumentation went and told on
this guy right here, and thenwhat did they do?
They promoted him, yeah, acouple times.
I guess I was doing it allwrong, huh, no, bro, let me tell

(01:00:29):
you you were doing it all right, bro, the truth comes out in
the wash is what they say.
Um, you know what I mean andeventually everything shall be
revealed.
Yeah, man, and there's no.
You know, it's not coincidencethat me and you met and we have
this platform.
You know what I mean.
The truth is the truth, bro,and it's not coincidence that me
and you met and we have thisplatform.
You know what I mean.
The truth is the truth, bro,and it's documented.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It's documented.
It's all there, man, it's allthere.
And even after, when I wasstill fighting, I got hired at
Calexico police department.
Dude, what do you mean?
I got hired.
They called me dude.
I was already fired, they hadalready accused me of dishonesty

(01:01:04):
and you had applied for acentral PD.
No, they called me bro.
They called me like hey, do youstill want to be a cop?
I'm like yeah, dude.
So I went back, I passed theirpolygraph.
They specifically asked me aquestion of did you
intentionally mislead thisinvestigation?

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
boom passed on the polygraph the polygraph.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Bro dude, unfortunately I couldn't use a
polygraph for my case with elcentro, okay did you end up
getting hired with collection?
I did you know yeah, you knowwhat happened what somebody from
el centro went to speak to thecity manager a month later and
convinced him to let me go.
That's disgusting, dude, andthis is what I heard from an

(01:01:44):
officer who was there at thetime was a hey man.
This is what I heard.
I have friends in the city halland this is what they did
that's disgusting, bro.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Again, everything happens for a reason.
You're better off.
You're better off that you'renot there, right, but the
fucking whole act is disgustingum, yeah, man, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
It was bad, like they just didn't care.
Dude, a judge told him in courtthis is crazy.
You guys need to change yourdecision because in the state of
california, if you accuse apolice officer of dishonesty,
you have to be able to proveintent or that they have
something to gain, which I didnot.
And he said you guys have notestablished intent here.
What's going on?
I'm gonna kick it back.

(01:02:23):
You guys need to change yourdecision.
You know what they did.
They just put intent is implied, intent is implied I like that,
fuck dude.
So you, you said you appealed itand that went nowhere no, um,
after this whole process, like Iwent to the I think it went to

(01:02:46):
the appellate court ofcalifornia or something like
that.
Throughout that time they hadto change attorneys like three
times.
I don't know what's going onwith that, so it got delayed.
Then they offered me like fivethousand dollars to let it go.
Who did that?
Was the city of el centrocentral pd, to let it go.
Who did the city of El Centro,el Centro PD To let it go?

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
huh, that's it, I'm like $5,000.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Like a settlement.
But I was like, come on, man,this is worth more than $5,000.
So I said no, they violated myskelly rights because they
brought up new evidence in themiddle of the trial that we were
going through.
Of course they did, they didn'tcare.

(01:03:25):
My attorney brought it up andthey didn't care.
It's just one of those thingsthat, uh, probably I wasn't
gonna stop it, man, they hadalready made up their mind.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Was that one of the worst things you ever
experienced in your life?

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
that's the worst thing.
That's the worst thing becauseI loved doing that so much.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Man like that was, I thought that was my calling for
life do you feel that the attackon your character was worse
than you actually losing yourjob?
Yeah, meaning, hey, they'remaking me out to be a liar, a
criminal, and I'm neither.
I'm getting chills, bro,because I fucking hate
departments to this day.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
If, if somebody calls me a liar, I take that
personally dude and that'sprobably something that I have
to deal with and not like, havethat reaction to, but it just
takes me back to like dude, I'mlike a trigger, yeah yeah, man,
damn dude, that is a freakinghell of a story, bro.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Um, you said you have a better job.
Now you have a good job, man.
How's life now?
I'm?

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
good man.
I mean, I, uh, I work at costco.
I'm a supervisor at costco inthe area.
Um, that's what's up.
My wife, my wife, uh, has amaster's degree.
She's way smarter than I amnice dude.
Uh, yeah, man, I'm happy I don'tlive in the valley anymore.
I I yeah, man, things are likeyou said, man it for a reason.

(01:04:40):
Although it was shitty at thetime, I learned a lot.
My perseverance has has grown alot.
My I just now it takes a lotmore to stop me, you know, to
bring me down type of thing, andI hope that me speaking about
all this helps other peoplegoing through it, because

(01:05:01):
unfortunately I know it'ssomething that's a lot more
common in law enforcement now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
So I can tell you, I know about probably 1,000, about
800 officers that have gottenfired right in different
departments, different agencies,for the same shit, bro, and
there will be more to come.
What advice do you have tothose cops that are about to be
wrongfully terminated?

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
um, first, uh know that there's a possibility that
you will not go back, becausethat's one of the mistakes I
made.
My the first thing I was like,no, I'm gonna go back, when I go
back, when I go back.
Okay, just be open to thepossibility because it just, if
it doesn't happen for you, inyour favor, at least you're
prepared for it.
Get yourself a good attorney.
Do not give any voluntarystatements, which I did not, but

(01:05:47):
and uh, review everything.
Review everything all the wayto the last document fuck dude.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
But ultimately it sounds to me that there's you
can't even save your job if youwanted to.
You know what I mean.
Like if you tried, like there'ssome things that are just it's
a government so big yeah, man, Ijust yeah, man, well, dude,
thank you for sharing thatfreaking story, bro.
Is there any last closingstatements you want to say the
camera's yours, bro, worldwatching I just would like to

(01:06:21):
portray the message that it'snot over.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
It's not over when you think you're at your lowest.
It's not over when you thinkthey've torn you all the way
down.
You can always start again andthere's always something on the
other side for you, man.
If your mind is right, if yourintentions are right, you're
going to end up somewhere on thetop, somewhere else maybe, but
you'll come back, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Damn dude.
You're a solid bro.
You're a solid dude man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
I can tell just by judging you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Bro, appreciate that I'm reading you.
There you guys have it folks.
Holy shit man, it's reallyupsetting, right.
And if you guys didn't know,these type of terminations and
dismissals from law enforcementjobs are a are plaguing,
plaguing departments across theUnited States.

(01:07:10):
Man With that, thank you guysfor watching.
Make sure you hit thatsubscribe button for more
episodes.
Love you guys.
Keep pushing forward.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Thank you.