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June 7, 2024 8 mins

56-year old Kevin Brace, a longtime Sacramento bail bondsman, died after an assault outside of Greg Padilla Bail Bonds on Monday June 3.

Arrested at the scene, 39-year old Jacob Levi Mandell, who pleaded not guilty to murder during his arraignment.

During an appearance on The Armstrong & Getty Show, the owner of the business, Topo Padilla, stated that Brace was dragged out of bail bonds office and beaten to death by a man who asked to use the phone.

Topo Padilla joined Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty to share details about the suspect, and the passing of his friend and colleague.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kevin was not a man walking down the street that
got in an altercation with somebody. Kevin was drug out
of our office in the streets of Sacramento and beaten
to death.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's the sort of thing that happens in blue cities
in the middle of the day.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
That's the voice of Topo Padilla, longtime friend of the
Armstrong and Getty Show, longtime part of Greg Padilla bail
Bond's Sacramento institution, and his friend employee. Kevin Brace was
the victim in question, literally dragged out of the office
and beaten to death. Topo Padilla joins us to discuss
the crime and the greater meaning of it. I know

(00:36):
this is painful, Topo, but thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
It is and I want to thank you both. You've
guys got a far reaching voice of meaningful change that
hopefully we can make in Kevin's memory, and I pray
to the Good Lord nobody else's memory in the coming future.
But I highly doubt that.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
So so the scumbag who did it. Are they in custody?

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, he just said, you know, kind of puts some
color into this because it needs to, because, as I said,
these people in the city council, and these leaders, they
have the ear muff one. They don't hear what we say.
Kevin was minding his own business. Guy comes to the
door and asks to be use the phone. Him and
Kevin exchanged words about the phone. Kevin offers to make

(01:17):
phone call. Kevin cracks the door, He drags the door
open and literally beat him to death with his hands
and his feet. No person in their right mind, no
drunk person. I don't care if you're a point two
to zero could beat a man the way this man
beat it.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I don't know what kind of a monster is, but
a monster he is. And there are monsters wandering our
streets all over this city and cities throughout this country.
Tell us about Kevin Kevin. Oh gosh, Kevin is such
a simple man. And you know you always hear this
about people after they pass. Oh gosh, he's a teddy
bear and the popsicles new Kevin was a simple man.

(01:56):
I was talking to his wife, Wendy, and I truly
want to send out my condolences or Windy's such a
sweet person. Kevin and Windy are two very simple people.
They didn't live a big life of color and flame
and traveling and doing all this stuff. Kevin loved the
A's and the Giants, he loved the Raiders and the
forty nine ers. He was just a quiet guy who guys.

(02:18):
He never wanted to work day shift. He always wanted
to work that graveyard shift. And you could tell me, hey,
I want to help the people who need to.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Help at night.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
So that he did this for thirty four years working
the graveyard shift in the bail bond profession. He did
that for thirty four years, working for US for fourteen
of those.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
The world of crime and justice is not something you
read about in the paper. You and your business and
your family. You see it every day. You're fully aware
of the reality of it. What has gone wrong? What
the hell is going on in California in terms of
crime and justice?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I know you guys know me, and you know I'm
not afraid to speak my mind. I finally came up
with a metaphor, and I asked some people the other day.
And I was meeting with Assume city leaders yesterday and
I said, would you all jump into seven forty seven
and let me fly you overseas? And now it looked
at me like, no, hell, no, what is The problem
is we have city leaders, and I'm talking about our
mayor and some other people that are in charge of

(03:14):
our police chiefs. You see, you don't see these kind
of problems in Eldorado County, in Sacramento County outside of
the city and other counties because sheriffs don't have a
mayor that is on their butt telling him how they
will police. And in these cities we have city leaders,
and in particular in Sacramento, we have Darryl Steinberg. He

(03:36):
doesn't know how to He can't operate a business of
dealing with people in public safety and crime and law
and order. He has no idea, just like I don't
know how to fly seven forty some He can't manage that.
So what do you ought to do? If he had
any guts, if he's any kind of leader, he did this,
step down and say somebody else take the helm. I
haven't done this in this many years, or he would say, hey,

(03:59):
you take care of this. The last thing that man
needs to do, or Katie Balins, what he needs to
do is to tell Chief Kathy Luster or any of
her men and women how to go do their job.
And the last thing I want to say on. That
is what they do is they listen to the loud
potbangers who don't go to work, who come down there,
who rally, who jump up on the stage of a

(04:19):
city council meeting and raise hell and have them affect
change change in their way that affects all the people
in our community that just want to live a good life. Right.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Two things. Number one, you're absolutely right. The radicals know
how to get attention and make noise and then sway
city councils even though they are a tiny, tiny minority
the population in terms of the way they see the
world and crime and justice. The other thing is I
absolutely can hear our listeners in la in the Bay Area,
in Portland, in Seattle, in Chicago, in Philadelphia all saying, hey, wow,

(04:54):
different list of names in our cities. Exactly the same
thing is going on. The backlash is started, but it's
way too slow.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
The only problem I have with your metaphor, Tobo, is
it's not that these people don't know how to run cities.
They have a different philosophy. It'd be more like if
you were the pilot to the plane and your philosophy
is to fly it into a mountain. Because that's what
you believe is the right thing to do. These people
believe it's the right thing to do to not arrest criminals.
I don't understand how they came to that conclusion, but

(05:25):
that's what they think is the way to run a city.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I think it's both. You have the radicals and then
you have the ignoramuses who think they're doing the right thing.
Go ahead, Tobo.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
You guys have known me long enough. I've been a
bail bonzan for forty one years. I'm not here to
have to keep for bail bones. This isn't say bail
bone day. But you know, people got to understand we
in the bail bonn profession, we do this. We are
dealing with people that have been arrested. We're dealing with
people that have a problem in life, and what we
want to do is see them be held accountable. If
they're guilty, go to jail, or go get the help

(05:56):
they need to change their lives. And we don't just
get people out of jail and go, oh fly, be free, Gush,
We're sorry you got arrested by these bad police. But
what people have to realize they're down there banging these
pots we're actually trying to help the people in their
community that are getting arrested and seek change. This guy
that did this, he was arrested twice for resisting arrest,

(06:17):
and he was convicted twice of a resisting arrest from
a police officer, and both times he got informal probation,
which is nothing.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
And resisting arrest is fighting a cop.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Basically, that's exactly right. And his third charge will come
and miss because he was as he was being detained,
beat up and heard an officer and it took you know,
I'm going to tell you this and this is going
to get colorful that you bare may not want to hear.
And I'm sorry. But when the police responded, one of
the officers responded to Kevin and was given him CPR.

(06:49):
The other officer was trying to arrest to Dane, the
murderer that did this, and the officer was getting not
having the best luck of resting this guy. That officer
had to stop giving Kevin CPR and go to the
officer's aid. And I hope that resonnates with Darryl Steinberg
and Katie Venezuela and every other city leader who thinks

(07:11):
they know how to run and I'm sorry for getting emotional.
Who thinks they know how to run a police department?
So Jack to correct kind of my metaphor, I want
to say this what they ought to do. Step out
of the way of these leaders of our police Cmharten,
because Kathy Lester and other police chiefs throughout this state
know how to be cops. But they put that city government.

(07:32):
These city leaders put a bit in their mouth and
say whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, don't go. These
are homeless people. I'm not worried about homeless people. I'm
worried about people that are walking the streets like zombies
that are under the influence of narcotics that will allow
them to beat up six cops at one time. These
are not homeless people.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
TELLPO thanks for coming on, Sorry for your loss. No, no, no,
not at all. Good to talk to you. I'm sorry.
It's under this terrible set of circumstances. Armstrong and Getty
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