August 12, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph shares his journey from being indoctrinated to hate and fear police, to becoming one of LAPD's best in blue.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Our next storyteller is a law enforcement consultant, author, an
active senior lead officer in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, let him introduce himself. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I'm a Dion Joseph. I am a twenty seven year
veteran of law enforcement. My primary assignment is working in
the skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles, working with
the homeless. Been doing so for about twenty five years.
It's ended up being my calling. The reason it became
my calling was kind of weird. I a never wanted
to be a police officer. I was raised who not
(00:52):
raised or indoctrinated by friends and activist groups that I
ran with that the police were basically my natural mortal enemy,
and a couple of times I was racially profile didn't
help when I was a civilian. Then came the Rodney
King incident and Rodney King incident, on top of the
insult and injury of those officers getting off for doing
(01:14):
that horrible act that they engaged in really really had
a negative impact on me. So I suffered from what's
called availability bias. The only thing that was being shown
or told to me about police officers was negative. My
favorite rap groups were a public enemy n waks one
and everything they said was either after police or the
(01:35):
police were beast. They were monsters who were trying to
exterminate black people.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
And I bought into it. I bought into it.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
And what happened was my father and mother they founded
the first black owned restaurant in the city of Long Beach.
Literally they were history makers, and their goal was to
try to employ the power the community, and it worked.
He had a successful construction business. He was giving guys
second chances who couldn't get changed is because their criminal
record and whatnot. And when we started that restaurant in
(02:04):
that shopping center, it was pretty successful.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
And then the riots hit.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And after the riots, our construction company suffered because not
a lot of people wanted to hire a black owned
company as one of the fallouts of the so called rebellion,
and I was out of work for about I want
to say, about three or four months no paycheck, and
I just met the most beautiful woman in the world,
my beautiful wife, Tasha. And of course you don't want
(02:30):
to be a dead beat. You want to be able
to support and take care of her, your future wife.
So I put my name in the hats of many jobs,
many jobs, and not one called me. And then I
had a friend and an uncle, an uncle who was
on the police force, and he says, hey, our department
is hiring.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Want to put your name in that hat.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And I was like that police force, I just I
saw what they did the right the king, I'm not
going to do this.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I will never be with that department.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
And things got worse for me, and finally I just said,
you know what, go ahead and put your name in
hat and see what happens. And if they call me,
I felt like I was going to do like three
years and quit and go finish college or something like
that and or do something else. So anyway, I was
praying and praying and praying for other jobs to call me,
and the only one that called me was my current agency.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And I'll never forget.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
When I got the letter, I was in my mom's
restaurant and three of my childhood friends, people who have
known me for years, sitting at a table eating some
short ribs and chicken, and I sold my mom. I said,
mom my past, I made it, and she started celebrating,
and she was saying, my son's going to be a
police officer. All three of my friends looked at me.
(03:38):
I won't call them friends, I'll call them associates. Looked
at my friends, would never desert me, looked at me,
stood up, walked out of the restaurant, and wanted nothing
to do with me anymore. And I couldn't believe it.
I hadn't even put on the badge yet, but it
was affecting my quote unquote blackness so to speak. You know,
as we're in the age of identity politics, you know
there's a certain way you have to ident it. I
(04:00):
suppy yourself as a black man, and I guess they
didn't see me as a black man anymore. They saw
me as the enemy. And I hadn't even put on
a uniform yet. So nonetheless, I was raised not to
really care about what people thought about me.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I had a goal.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I wanted to take care of my wife and I
wanted to get married and be a good supporter. And
I joined and I was before joining. I'll never forget
my wife's side of the family. They didn't have a
very good relationship with the police in fact, it was horrendous.
You know, you're talking about police officers back in the
seventies kidnapping my mother in law and driving around a
(04:35):
block threatening and a hurt her. You know, cousins of
theirs who were shot, you know, unarmed and things of
that nature. They were not fans of the police. So
I kept getting it from all sides, you know, from
my mother in law's side, it was, don't let those
quote unquote white boys change you. Don't let those white
boys change you. Here's what they did to me back
in nineteen sixty. This everything was past tense. Everything was
(04:56):
past tense, and it was scaring me. It was scaring me,
and of course my dad he was a little disappointed
at first that I joined, because of course every father
wants his son to continue the legacy of the business.
But that just wasn't for me. So he was telling me,
you know, you know about all the horror stories that
my uncle saw on the job, and all these things
were swirling on my mind. So I'll never forget.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
It was the.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Christmas night I proposed to my wife. She said yes,
thank God, And the next morning, December twenty sixth, nineteen
ninety five, I was standing in what's called the black line.
It was a tradition in the police academy that when
you're on your first DAID academy, all applicants have to
stand on a black line. And basically what happens is
they're testing your will, They're testing you.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
You have your instructors.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yelling at you and barking at you, seeing if you
had the temperament or the you know, to be a
police officer. And I think we had several of my
classmates quit and the whole time, I'm thinking, I know,
these guys are about to call me the N word.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
It never happened. Never happened. In the academy.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Ninety percent of what we learned was more about human
relations in Spanish than how to keep our heads from
being blown off our shoulders. That's how crazy it was.
It's like it was complete opposite or juxtaposed to what
my family and friends were telling me.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And I was surprised at how open they allowed me
to be.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I was able to share how many African Americans felt
about the police and my experiences with the police, and
no one shunned me. They listened, and it was really
a great experience. I actually helped. It actually helped me
break down stereotypes that I had of my white classmates
and the other classmates I had so but that didn't
cure me yet.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
And you're listening to Dion Joseph, a senior lead officer
in Los Angeles, share his story his early resentment and
partially well learned of the police. He had had encounters
that weren't good. But my goodness, what he was learning
as he was becoming an officer about his friends and
himself and his fellow officers, well, it was a learning
(06:59):
experience for everyone. When we come back, more of Dion
Joseph's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Here are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith,
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
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Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
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(07:53):
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and with senior lead officer in Los Angeles,
(08:16):
Dion Joseph.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Let's continue where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Then I ended up graduating from the academy and I
ended up in the field in Venice Beach, and I'll
never forget my first training officer was basically abusive to me.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
He was very, very cruel.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
His whole matra was it's my job not to hire you,
to get you fired, And basically I was just close
to getting fired. And my second training officer was a
department legend. His name was Bill Snowden, and they told
me to study up on him, and I pulled some
of his police reports and I'm looking at this guy.
He made twenty three hundred arrest in a black neighborhood
called Oakwood. I'm like, oh my god, I'm about to
(08:56):
work with this guy, a white guy who was arrested
twenty three hundred black people, small part of Vennis Beach.
And I was like, all the things my family was
telling me, and all the things they put in my heart,
you know, was like swelling up inside me.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And I was scared.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So finally I meet the man and we get in
the car and I work with him, and I couldn't
he drove me over to Oakwood where he patrols, and
it was the strangest thing. I'm driving through the area
with his six foot four, blonde haired, blue eyed, white
guy with a big old mustache, right the stereotypical vision
of what people would think a racist cop would look like.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
And as he's driving through the community, I'm hearing this, Hey,
snow Hey, God bless you, snowed in. Hey, thanks for
helping my cousin snowding.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh my god, Hey, thanks for helping my cousin while
he was in jail, snoten. And I'm sitting here like,
what the hell is this? You know, is this guy
scaring the community so bad that they just smile away?
I thought I was in an episode of The Godfather
or something like that.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It was weird.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
And he saw the look on my face and he
said he pulled the car over. He says, you got
something on your mind. I was like, sir, I don't
understand it. You're in a black community. You arrested half
the people here and their mother. Why did these people
love you? And he said this, He said, Dion, this
is Oakwood. It's one of the most violent areas in
(10:14):
the city. You know, I'm not here because these people
are black. I'm here because I'm not. People die. These
people understand why we're here. But what they also want
you to do is whether you're arresting them or counseling
them or whatever, you make sure you treat them with
dignity and respect. That's all they want from us. And
he said, as long as you work for me, young man,
you will treat everyone we contact with dignity and respect.
(10:35):
And I was like, who, Thank god, another stereotype was
completely broken down that my family was feeding me. And
it really really helped me bring my tunnel vision about
you know, groups of people, you know, especially white police officers.
So and it wasn't that he was giving me permission
to do that. I already knew that that was the
(10:56):
cop I wanted to be. It was just good to
know that an officer of his status, this legend, this
department ledger, believed in the same thing I believed in.
And it was a pleasure working with this man. And
after my probation was up, he literally saved my career.
I graduated from probation and it ended up at Central
Division and Central Division is where skid Row is now.
(11:18):
I wasn't really excited about going to skid Row at all.
I remember one of my training offers telling me said, Dion,
you have to wear a body kind of in the
work there. The people have hepatitis age HIV, they got
needles in their pocket. You're gonna get in their use
of force and get stuck with a needle and give
your wife the herpes. And I was like, oh my god.
At the time, I was a German phobe. I would
(11:38):
like wear five gloves to search people. You know, That's
just who I was. And it really scared me. And
then he also said the cops they are also fat
and lazy. They just let people do anything they want
to do over there. I was like, what, oh man.
So i get on a freeway and I'm driving and
it's a hot summer day, i think it's in June
or July, and I'm looking at the beautiful picturesque La
(12:01):
skyline and I'm like, this can't be that bad.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Look the Bank tower's over there.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Look at all these skyscrapers, and can't be that bad.
I get off on Sixth Street and as I get
off on Sixth Street, I'm at the basin of the
West Coast, symbol of America's economic might in power, and
I'm seeing people in business suits. I'm seeing people drinking coffee,
smoking cigarettes, getting ready to go for work. And I said,
(12:27):
what is my training officer talking about?
Speaker 4 (12:29):
This is great?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Now, you know, if you get to some bad places,
there's like about a mile and a half stretch of
territory that kind of warned you first.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
You are now entering Hoodville.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Get ready. This did not happen here. As soon as
I crossed Spring Street, I'll never forget. It was like
I tripped and fell into Dante's Inferno, Mad MAXX, Thunderdome,
water World. You any natural disaster move I think an
airplane fell from the sky.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
It was.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
They're really that bad. I'll never forget the smells. I
remember seeing people having sex on the sidewalk. I remember
seeing people shooting up and small crack right two blocks
from a police station in broad daylight. I remember trash
piled so high that it came up to your knees,
tense rocking, people arguing in the street, And I remember
(13:12):
the saddest thing I saw.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Was a young man in.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
A hospital gown walking in the middle of the street
talking to himself clearly he was mentally ill and had
been thrown away. And I said to myself, God, I
can't fix this. I'm going to put my transfer as
soon as I get into the station. I get into
the station, and sure enough, it was the same thing,
The same things I smelled and saw on the outside
was inside, sitting on the bench waiting to get transported
(13:38):
to jail. I'm seeing paroles, gang members, homeless people, mentally
ill people handcuffed to the bench, yelling, screaming, headbutting each other,
set tripping, and I'm like wow, And I'm noticing the
officers are just typing like nothing's happening. And I look
at one of my class bands, I'm like, do you
see what the hell is happening here? And she just
lit some incense and kept on talking. I was like,
what were what happened?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
You know?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I did upstairs on a light and go put my
transfer in. Go put my transfer in. And there was
a sergeant who used to call us all Hermino or
brother in Spanish. He said, hey, Hermino, your officer, Joseph, Hey,
your first two months is going to be spent working
the front desk of Central station. And I was like, Oh,
thank God, God answer my prayer. So I was like, oh,
I don't have to deal with this crap. Two months
breaking the front desk, I was wrong at the front desk,
(14:22):
and it was the first of the month, and every
five ten to twenty minutes, somebody came in from skid
Row with their arm broken backwards where they could swing
it forty five degrees the other way. One lady came
in with her cheeks lacerated so like she had a
second mouth. You could see her teeth. Another man walked
into the station holding his stomach and moves his hand
and his intentions fell out, and I couldn't believe what
(14:46):
I was seeing. And the common thread with all of
these people were I don't want a police report. I
just want an ambulance to take me to the hospital.
I have to live here, because what I didn't realize
was what I did realize was the station was in
the heart of where skid row. I also discovered the
cops there weren't fat and lazy. They were just working
in a time where the justice system didn't support their efforts,
(15:07):
kind of what we're living in right now. So I'm like, man,
get me off this front desk. I can't take it.
And then I get my first basic patrol car and
it was Chinatown like Chinatown, Yes, culture people in the
park stretching and doing taichie and great eating spots.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
And I'm telling you it was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Your blood pressure went down just parking there, right, And
I'm about to write my first ticket. I was there
only five minutes, about to write my first ticket at
Alpine and the off I remember correctly, and we get
a call one A one respond to seventh and San
Julian for the attack in progress. Back then, attack meant rape,
sexual assault. So we're driving like bats out of hill
(15:47):
to get down there, and sure enough we get there
and there's a woman sitting with her legs crossed, rocking
back and forth. She was literally torn to shreds, face
messed up, bleeding, skirt torn, and people were standing around
her mocking her.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And I got out of the car and I tried
to talk to her, and she would and talk.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
To me, and all I hear these gang members excuse
my French saying, oh that ain't gonna talk to you.
Oh you want, you want, you must be new here,
get your back in the car.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Man.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
She ain't gonna tell you nothing, and literally she told
me nothing. I had to take a Jane Dole assault report,
caught her in Ambuesce and that was that. And I
couldn't believe what I saw. So my partner says, let's
not go back here today, and.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You're listening to active senior lead officer in Los Angeles
Dion Joseph share the story of his life and his
work in Los Angeles as a police officer and that
first assignment in Venice Beach Boy. I can only describe
that neighborhood as sketchy. I was there at around the
same time he was. I was living there and it's
much different now, but it was sketchy and dangerous and
(16:47):
still can be late at night. And there was that
training officer who he reported to, Well, we've all had
people we've had to report to that were, let's just say,
people we hoped to never report two again. And then
came his training officer in Oakwood, who fit the stereotype
of what he thought well white racist cops looked like tall, blonde,
(17:10):
blue eyes and a mustache. Only the black people he
was serving in that neighborhood loved him, and I loved
him for a simple reason.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
He was there to serve them.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
He kept telling him again and again that he wasn't
just there to treat the people with dignity who didn't
commit crimes, but to even commit to the principle that
the purpose and the suspects themselves deserved to be treated
with dignity and respect. And then came skid Row and Chinatown.
When we come back more of the story of Dion
(17:41):
Joseph here on our American story and we continue with
(18:11):
our American stories and with law enforcement consultant, author and
active senior lead officer in Los Angeles, Dion Joseph.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
We get back to Chinatown and once again we get
the Fifth and Santa Julian for ad w in progress.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
We get there and.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
First we're wondering where the basic car for that area
is and they're tied up with three people they arrested.
It's kind of a picture how dangerous it was down there.
We get to Fifth in Sant Julian, I see a
man sitting holding his chest on the sidewalk, and sure enough,
somebody stabbed him and punctured his lawn. And he points
down the street to the man who did it, and
(18:51):
I was like, the guy was walking like he wasn't
running away. So I called an ambulance form to go
to detain this guy. And I'll never forget him saying
to me, Oh, why you're so hard up. I'm going
to be out in about two days. DA's going to
reject this case. And I'm like, no, he's not. I
went to this station because one thing I can't stand
is when you hurt people who are poor or downtrodden.
(19:13):
You know, it's part of my DNA. So I went
to this station and I wrote the world's greatest police report.
And I struggled because I was from a unified school
district that really didn't give us crap about me, right.
I literally had an English teacher that said, yeah, and
all you got to do is put your name on
the paper and we'll give you a CEE.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
And I did that, taking the easy way out.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
So to this day, I still struggle with dangelin participles
and antecedents, and you know, as a result of not trying,
that's my fault, not is. Anyway, I sat down and
wrote the greatest police report in the world, dotted every
ie crossed every te plan's everywhere quotations in the right place.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
It was beautiful. Give it to the watch commander.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
In his watch commander, we called him a red pin
and he would keep a red pin and for new
officers he would just completely rip up their reports because
he was an English major. And I think I saw
a tear in his eyes. He said, j if this
is the world's greatest police report, I'm exaggerating their course.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
And I was like, thank you, sir. I took the
guy to jail.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And I just knew that I was going to get
a victim, a homeless victim, some justice.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I came back two days later.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I'm driving down the street and I guess who I
see the ballhead guy who stabbed him.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
And he looked at me and said, as I told you,
I was upset. I was livid.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I went into the detective's office and I said, hey,
I wrote the hell out of that report. And the
detective say, you sure did, Officer Joseph. It was a
great report. And she showed me the disposition of the
District Attorney's office and it says, DA reject because the
victim is a drug addict, and because they're homeless. I
would ask anybody, does that sound fair to you? And
the answer is absolutely not. You know, justice should not
(20:44):
be dealt to people who we believe are perfect people.
You know, it's for everybody. And that was a moment
that changed my life. You always find a catalyst, and
that was my catalyst for why I decided to kind
of stay and be a champion on time of my DNA.
The reason why people thought I was crazy for being
in skid row enthusiastically right was because my parents. My
(21:09):
parents were engaged in outreach their entire life. Their forty
seven year marriage, they helped raise forty one foster children
on top of their four children and three grandchildren. So
I was around for about seventeen of those kids. And
you would think I would have a little resentment for
not getting one hundred percent of my parents love, but no,
(21:30):
it was actually wonderful to see my parents changed these kids' lives,
whether they were with us for two weeks or for
two years. And the cool thing about my parents, it
wasn't just about the kids. They would often sneak and
counsel the parents, so the parents would end up being
better parents when the kids finally went back to them,
and I'll never forget. We took in kids who are
(21:52):
sexually assaulted, homeless, neglected, malnourished. We even took home with
neo Nazi and this kid's father told them, don't eat
the n words food. I'm going to come sneak a
big mac to you. And I couldn't believe it, right,
So the father never came with that big mach. So
after about the third or fourth day, I think the
kid got hungry and we caught him in a refrigerator
sneaking some collar greens and black eyed peas and and
(22:15):
it was delicious and he didn't buy. He re watched
that the inwards foods.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
It's not going to kill you, right.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
And after about another month with us, he saw he
thought he was black. He was like, man, you know,
we got pulled over by the police and this kid
was like you just stoped, just can here black?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
And bro like no, no, no, kid, no do I'll
never forget that.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
It was a road trip to Louisiana that was It
was hilarious and he didn't want to go back to
his own dad. He ended up thankfully being sent to
his mother, who wasn't a neo Nazi. And uh, just
watching my parents change the life of these kids was
incredible to me. Then my dad, he was a self
made man, grew up in the Jim Crow South, dealt
with real tangible racism, not this trend third racism that
(23:01):
we're dealing with today. We got kids today acting like
they've lived through Jim Crow and they don't. They have
no idea what real tangible palpable cross burning you sit
on the back of the bus racism was like my
dad grew up in that and because of being.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
So poor and so broke, being abandoned.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
By his family at times, he turned to crying, and
of course he changed his life. Found the Lord. Met
my mom in church, or actually fell in love with
my mom in church. They met at a hospital, and
basically he said, I was never going to hurt anybody
again to get what I needed. So when he became
a successful businessman, he would always reach back and hire
(23:42):
individuals who reminded him of himself. And I didn't know this.
I was going through my background investigations with the department,
and they, of course one of the questions they ask
is have you ever associated with any known felons? And
of course I was telling the truth. No, squeaky clean.
You guys checked me out. You guys talked to my
fourth grade teacher. What the hell you know this right?
And turns out my dad says, sorry, son.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
You did.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I said, what are you talking about? He said, you
remember Cowboy the framer?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Oh he is an ex murderer. What you remember Andre,
the guy you dig ditches with. I was like, yeah,
he was a drug dealer.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
And I was like what.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
But I calmed down when I realized the beauty of
what my dad did. He gave people a second chance
who reminded him of himself, and if they wanted that
second chance, he was going to help them.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
He believed in hands up, not hands outs. He believed
in the.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Hands up giving people a hand up. So watching this
inspired me and I loved he never called his employees
his employees. He always called him his friends. And I
was amazed by this.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
And you'll never hear.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Me call a person in skid roll bum, a hobow,
a transient. I will always call them my friends, even
if they're cussing me out, I will always call them
my friends. And then, lastly, my mother and father fed
the homeless religiously every Saturday, cooking fresh, home cooked meals
as if she was cooking for her family, and taking
it down to parks and helping families. And she did
(25:04):
that up until she got sick and passed away. So
after about three months of being in skid Row, all
fears went away, and I realized that I was home.
This is what my parents were preparing me for, and
all I was doing was in my own way, carrying
out their mission. And I fell in love with trying
to help and change the culture of skid Row. As
(25:25):
a patrol cop. I loved the community then just as
much as I did now. I just went about it differently.
Arrested everybody and their mother.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
That's what I did.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
If you were selling crack, if you were assaulting people,
if you murdered somebody, I'm going to drive up and
I'm going to stuff you in the back of my car,
all with several of your friends if I can. And
that's a noble effort. There's nothing wrong with that, nothing
racist or cold about that. You know, you break the law,
you got to do the time. But what it did
was it kind of left It gave me a perception
problem to the community because I didn't have time to
(25:56):
stop and say what I was doing or why, because
I was so busy. It was just like, I'm just
here to arrest black people. So I ended up getting
one of many names at the time, RoboCop.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
I have had many names.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
So the first name was Uncle Tom, a house negro,
white man's boot licking lap dog. I heard that one, right. Yeah,
the combinations were just incredible. Then came RoboCop because they
I walked like a robot. I had all this gear
on me, and it's like you couldn't get away from me.
I knew every crevice of the area.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And you're listening to Dion Joseph tell one heck of
his story, not just about himself, not just about the
people he defends and calls his friends, those people on
skid row, but also the model that his family provided
for him, adopting so many people whose society would cast off.
And you know, here on this show we tell stories
(26:47):
about people whose society casts off, but great people, particularly
people of faith, well give a second chance, and give
a real second chance. I hand up, not a handout,
and very different things. And you could hear it in
Dion Joseph's voice and even a chuckle explaining the difference
between a hand up and a handout. When we come
(27:10):
back more of this remarkable story. It's a story about
so many things, but in the end, about grace and
love behind a badge. The story of Dion Joseph continues
here on our American Stories, and we continue with our
(27:39):
American stories and law enforcement consultant, author and active senior
lead officer in Los Angeles, Dion Joseph, let's continue with
the story.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So then, after about seven years in the street and
then two years undercover, I got the opportunity to become
a senior lead officer, another job I didn't want. I
became a senior lead officer, and you know, I didn't
want to smile away and kiss babies. I wanted to
go back to doing what I was usually doing, fighting
bad crime and getting bad guys off the street. But
I was doing the same thing, expecting the same results,
(28:12):
different results. And I looked back on all the arrest
I made and all the actions I took to try
to make the community better, and nothing changed, because that
once again the justice system. For every bad guy put
in jail, they were out the next day and they
were replaced by two more So something I'll never forget.
And I don't mean to preach, but I'm sitting on
Main Street frustrated. Main Street was one of the most
(28:35):
dangerous streets at the time, and I'm parked there and
I'm seeing drug dealers had drug deals happening all over
the place, right in front of my face. And I said,
I just parked my car and said a prayer. I said, God,
how can I fix this? You know these people are suffering.
What can I do? And all I heard in my
spirit was stay here, okay. I parked my car there
(28:55):
for six hours, and what happened was the drug there
is what they expected me to do his park a
few minutes and leave, but I stayed there for six hours.
It was so funny because drug dealers kept coming up
to my car, going, hey, anytime for you to go
do something else, anytime for you to go home?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
And something told me. I said I am home, and
they were like wow.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
So I left for about three quarters of them came back.
I came back, park for another hour. They left, now
was a half. I kept doing it until it was
like no drug dealers on the block. And I did
this for a week. I called it the sit down technique,
and about seven days after doing it, I saw this
man come up to me. There's something called a silent
(29:36):
majority in any community. These are the people who they
support police, they support law and order, but they have
a figure it of a literal gun to their head
telling him not to talk to the police even if
you get stabbed, raped or shot. And this man knocks
on my window and I think he's going to be
another drug dealer asking me to leave. And I rolled
down the window and he says, hey, I don't know
who you are, but don't you ever leave this block.
(29:58):
This is the first time I've been able to walk
down the street in about fifteen years. It worked, and
I said, okay, it's working on this block, so let
me switch to the next block. So I called it
the CID down technique and it started to reduce crime.
I was reducing crime by myself, and I reduced crime
eighteen percent with no resources. And people couldn't believe it.
They couldn't believe that Main Street was clean, Winston Street
(30:20):
was clean, some parts of Fifth Street were getting clean.
It was crazy, but I couldn't do it for long.
A lot of people focus on me, but I couldn't
do it myself. So as I was starting to lose ground,
God sent some incredible officers to help me hold down
Main Street in the streets that I took care of
until the Safer Cities initiative, and that's when fifty incredible
officers were brought to the division to focus on skid
(30:42):
row and help reduce crime. And while they went on
the offensive, I went on the defensive and tried to
build relationships to let the community know that we're not
doing this to you, We're doing this for you. Because
we had activists in the area who were actively telling
them that we were trying to get rid of them,
we wanted to criminalize them, and none of.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
That was true.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
What are the police supposed to do when ninety five
human beings die from non homicidal deaths in one year
in the fifty block radius, what are we supposed to
let it happen? That's the cruelty. The cruelty is not
enforcing the law. The cruelty is not enforcing the law.
What are we supposed to do about that? Sit on
our hands because it's not. The optics aren't friendly. No,
we refuse to do that. We recognize a skid Row
(31:25):
accounter for like fifty percent of all the crime in
the area. And we went in and it wasn't just enforcement,
it was enhancements, outreach, and we were arresting people for
the sake of getting them to programs that they normally
would refuse without a push. But now, for the first
time in my career, we had the justice system, working
(31:47):
with US Parole Probation, the DA's office. Everybody was on board.
We have to fix skid Row. It's a disaster. And
during that time, I always say, if you want somebody
to change, you have to create an environm make conducers
to that. That's common sense, that's not political, that's not
left or right, And I'll never forget during the time
where we created the environment through enforcement, enhancement and outreach,
(32:12):
it made certain individuals ready for help. So as a
senior lead officer, I began networking with housing agencies inside
skid Row and outside of skied Row. I did that
on my own because I know there were individuals who
are desperately wanting to get off the street. Not everybody,
but I house about one hundred and fifty people in
ten years who were ready because of our push Now
(32:34):
that's nothing. In skied rollers about two thousand people on
average whose choose to sleep in the street. There's very
few people who aren't there by choice. Okay, I would
say about thirty five percent of the individuals are there
because the party, because this is the place they can
go and do their thing. Many people aren't homeless. But
why didn't those other two thousand come for help? Because
(32:56):
they weren't ready. They weren't ready. But by the grace
of God, due to the we got one hundred and
fifty people off the streets. And then through the initiative,
we got a lot twenty two hundred and twenty five
individuals signed up for programs. Now I'm not saying everybody
completed the program, but about thirty percent of them in
my estimation did. And people were going home, people were
reuniting with family members, We were finding.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Missing people, murderers. It was a beautiful time.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And then I used my resources to build bridges with
the community. Community members that normally wouldn't talk to the police.
Of course, you had your extreme activist groups. There's no
talking to them. They don't want to sit at the table.
They say they want to sit at the table. No
they want to completely turn it over just to feel
a sense of power. That ends up doing more damage
(33:40):
to the people that claim they're trying to help them
than anything else. It just made me realize that community policing,
grassroots community policing, does work, but you got to put
the work in.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
You can't be scared.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And I helped this group get paint trash cans to
beautify the community. They literally clean the community up better
than the city did. No shot at the city. It's
just these folks were more passionate about it. They painted
murals saying these are black people, right, saying we want clean, safe,
healthy streets black people. You know, but the news never
(34:11):
reported this stuff. Skid Row was relatively safe and they
did it all purpose. You know, they only want one
narrative about the police, right. But the reality is, during
two thousand and five and twenty eleven, skid Row was
a relatively safe place to live. Here are the effects
of it, and it was just a beautiful time.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
I have no regrets.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I've saved more lives than anybody who criticizes me for
being a police officer. And everyone who criticized me, they
either turned their head and look the other way. I
would not change this career or the path that I've
taken for anything in the world. I'm still going to
continue to try to be a light in a dark
place for the I remember every time I go on vacation.
If I'm going thirty days and I come back, it's
(34:53):
like their long lost father just came home.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Damn, Roma, God, where you're been managedment crazy out here?
Speaker 3 (34:57):
I'm like you, Remember I was telling you about Bill
Snow and you know him driving down the street and
people screaming his name from the rooftop. The same thing
happens to me. People don't understand why I'm so passionate.
You can call me crazy, you can call me whatever
you want. I touch these things, and until you touch it,
you will never ever understand why I'm so passionate about
bringing in a sense of order to skid Row. Yes,
(35:19):
law enforcement is such an important component anything you want
to do, whether it's a noble cause such as get
people safe and clean or have a concert, if it's
not safe, no one's going to go. If you want
to run a school, if it's not safe, kids aren't
going to learn. And I'll be public safety as a
cornerstone of all of that. I believe in crime control,
and when you say that, people start shaking, you know.
(35:39):
But the truth is, I also believe in due process.
And we need to stop bilifying the concept of law
enforcement because places like skied Row needs order. If we're
going to save lives down there, if we're going to
get people into these programs, we need the justice system
to work again in a matter where they before, where
if I brought a drug addict to you, you put
them in a mandatory drug program that doesn't exist anymore.
(36:01):
So all I can do right now is be visible
and try to deter people from getting hurt. But that's
the system. I'm not saying this because I hate the homeless.
I'm saying this because I care about them. This is
not a police perspective. It's coming from a perspective of
a human man who cares, who.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Just happens to be a cop. And that's me in
a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
And a terrific job on the production editing and story
gathering by our own Greg Hangler and a special thanks
to Dion Joseph for sharing his story and it's a
heck of a story where all of us can learn
from that moment he was on Main Street watching drug dealers,
as he said, everywhere around him, and he offered up
that prayer to God, Lord, how can.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I help this?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
He heard two words from God, stay here, and it's
what he did. And he did what he called the
sit down technique, and that is just sit down. And
what do you know, just by his presence, well, the
drug dealers slowly started to fade away. In fact, one
of them even walked up to him and sort of said, hey,
when are you going home? Ain't it time for you
(37:06):
to go home? His rebuttal was I am home. And
then that knock on the window. I don't know who
you are, but don't leave the block. Don't leave the block.
By the way, this is a call to arms for
so many men and women who can well sit and
be present on a block that might have problems.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Just your presence can make the difference. You don't have
to be a law enforcement officer.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
To make a difference by doing the sit This story
was about so many things, public safety being a cornerstone,
but due process too, and compassion and mercy and love
for the.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Least of these.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
The story of RoboCop RoboCop Dion Joseph No robot at all.
Here on our American stories,
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Our next storyteller is a law enforcement consultant, author, an
active senior lead officer in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, let him introduce himself. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I'm a Dion Joseph. I am a twenty seven year
veteran of law enforcement. My primary assignment is working in
the skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles, working with
the homeless. Been doing so for about twenty five years.
It's ended up being my calling. The reason it became
my calling was kind of weird. I a never wanted
to be a police officer. I was raised who not
(00:52):
raised or indoctrinated by friends and activist groups that I
ran with that the police were basically my natural mortal enemy,
and a couple of times I was racially profile didn't
help when I was a civilian. Then came the Rodney
King incident and Rodney King incident, on top of the
insult and injury of those officers getting off for doing
(01:14):
that horrible act that they engaged in really really had
a negative impact on me. So I suffered from what's
called availability bias. The only thing that was being shown
or told to me about police officers was negative. My
favorite rap groups were a public enemy n waks one
and everything they said was either after police or the
(01:35):
police were beast. They were monsters who were trying to
exterminate black people.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
And I bought into it. I bought into it.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
And what happened was my father and mother they founded
the first black owned restaurant in the city of Long Beach.
Literally they were history makers, and their goal was to
try to employ the power the community, and it worked.
He had a successful construction business. He was giving guys
second chances who couldn't get changed is because their criminal
record and whatnot. And when we started that restaurant in
(02:04):
that shopping center, it was pretty successful.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
And then the riots hit.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And after the riots, our construction company suffered because not
a lot of people wanted to hire a black owned
company as one of the fallouts of the so called rebellion,
and I was out of work for about I want
to say, about three or four months no paycheck, and
I just met the most beautiful woman in the world,
my beautiful wife, Tasha. And of course you don't want
(02:30):
to be a dead beat. You want to be able
to support and take care of her, your future wife.
So I put my name in the hats of many jobs,
many jobs, and not one called me. And then I
had a friend and an uncle, an uncle who was
on the police force, and he says, hey, our department
is hiring.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Want to put your name in that hat.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And I was like that police force, I just I
saw what they did the right the king, I'm not
going to do this.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I will never be with that department.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
And things got worse for me, and finally I just said,
you know what, go ahead and put your name in
hat and see what happens. And if they call me,
I felt like I was going to do like three
years and quit and go finish college or something like
that and or do something else. So anyway, I was
praying and praying and praying for other jobs to call me,
and the only one that called me was my current agency.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And I'll never forget.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
When I got the letter, I was in my mom's
restaurant and three of my childhood friends, people who have
known me for years, sitting at a table eating some
short ribs and chicken, and I sold my mom. I said,
mom my past, I made it, and she started celebrating,
and she was saying, my son's going to be a
police officer. All three of my friends looked at me.
(03:38):
I won't call them friends, I'll call them associates. Looked
at my friends, would never desert me, looked at me,
stood up, walked out of the restaurant, and wanted nothing
to do with me anymore. And I couldn't believe it.
I hadn't even put on the badge yet, but it
was affecting my quote unquote blackness so to speak. You know,
as we're in the age of identity politics, you know
there's a certain way you have to ident it. I
(04:00):
suppy yourself as a black man, and I guess they
didn't see me as a black man anymore. They saw
me as the enemy. And I hadn't even put on
a uniform yet. So nonetheless, I was raised not to
really care about what people thought about me.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I had a goal.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I wanted to take care of my wife and I
wanted to get married and be a good supporter. And
I joined and I was before joining. I'll never forget
my wife's side of the family. They didn't have a
very good relationship with the police in fact, it was horrendous.
You know, you're talking about police officers back in the
seventies kidnapping my mother in law and driving around a
(04:35):
block threatening and a hurt her. You know, cousins of
theirs who were shot, you know, unarmed and things of
that nature. They were not fans of the police. So
I kept getting it from all sides, you know, from
my mother in law's side, it was, don't let those
quote unquote white boys change you. Don't let those white
boys change you. Here's what they did to me back
in nineteen sixty. This everything was past tense. Everything was
(04:56):
past tense, and it was scaring me. It was scaring me,
and of course my dad he was a little disappointed
at first that I joined, because of course every father
wants his son to continue the legacy of the business.
But that just wasn't for me. So he was telling me,
you know, you know about all the horror stories that
my uncle saw on the job, and all these things
were swirling on my mind. So I'll never forget.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
It was the.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Christmas night I proposed to my wife. She said yes,
thank God, And the next morning, December twenty sixth, nineteen
ninety five, I was standing in what's called the black line.
It was a tradition in the police academy that when
you're on your first DAID academy, all applicants have to
stand on a black line. And basically what happens is
they're testing your will, They're testing you.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
You have your instructors.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yelling at you and barking at you, seeing if you
had the temperament or the you know, to be a
police officer. And I think we had several of my
classmates quit and the whole time, I'm thinking, I know,
these guys are about to call me the N word.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
It never happened. Never happened. In the academy.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Ninety percent of what we learned was more about human
relations in Spanish than how to keep our heads from
being blown off our shoulders. That's how crazy it was.
It's like it was complete opposite or juxtaposed to what
my family and friends were telling me.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And I was surprised at how open they allowed me
to be.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I was able to share how many African Americans felt
about the police and my experiences with the police, and
no one shunned me. They listened, and it was really
a great experience. I actually helped. It actually helped me
break down stereotypes that I had of my white classmates
and the other classmates I had so but that didn't
cure me yet.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
And you're listening to Dion Joseph, a senior lead officer
in Los Angeles, share his story his early resentment and
partially well learned of the police. He had had encounters
that weren't good. But my goodness, what he was learning
as he was becoming an officer about his friends and
himself and his fellow officers, well, it was a learning
(06:59):
experience for everyone. When we come back, more of Dion
Joseph's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Here are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith,
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
need to be told. But we can't do it without you.
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love our stories in America
like we do, please go to our American Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
(07:53):
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and with senior lead officer in Los Angeles,
(08:16):
Dion Joseph.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Let's continue where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Then I ended up graduating from the academy and I
ended up in the field in Venice Beach, and I'll
never forget my first training officer was basically abusive to me.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
He was very, very cruel.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
His whole matra was it's my job not to hire you,
to get you fired, And basically I was just close
to getting fired. And my second training officer was a
department legend. His name was Bill Snowden, and they told
me to study up on him, and I pulled some
of his police reports and I'm looking at this guy.
He made twenty three hundred arrest in a black neighborhood
called Oakwood. I'm like, oh my god, I'm about to
(08:56):
work with this guy, a white guy who was arrested
twenty three hundred black people, small part of Vennis Beach.
And I was like, all the things my family was
telling me, and all the things they put in my heart,
you know, was like swelling up inside me.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And I was scared.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
So finally I meet the man and we get in
the car and I work with him, and I couldn't
he drove me over to Oakwood where he patrols, and
it was the strangest thing. I'm driving through the area
with his six foot four, blonde haired, blue eyed, white
guy with a big old mustache, right the stereotypical vision
of what people would think a racist cop would look like.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
And as he's driving through the community, I'm hearing this, Hey,
snow Hey, God bless you, snowed in. Hey, thanks for
helping my cousin snowding.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh my god, Hey, thanks for helping my cousin while
he was in jail, snoten. And I'm sitting here like,
what the hell is this? You know, is this guy
scaring the community so bad that they just smile away?
I thought I was in an episode of The Godfather
or something like that.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It was weird.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
And he saw the look on my face and he
said he pulled the car over. He says, you got
something on your mind. I was like, sir, I don't
understand it. You're in a black community. You arrested half
the people here and their mother. Why did these people
love you? And he said this, He said, Dion, this
is Oakwood. It's one of the most violent areas in
(10:14):
the city. You know, I'm not here because these people
are black. I'm here because I'm not. People die. These
people understand why we're here. But what they also want
you to do is whether you're arresting them or counseling
them or whatever, you make sure you treat them with
dignity and respect. That's all they want from us. And
he said, as long as you work for me, young man,
you will treat everyone we contact with dignity and respect.
(10:35):
And I was like, who, Thank god, another stereotype was
completely broken down that my family was feeding me. And
it really really helped me bring my tunnel vision about
you know, groups of people, you know, especially white police officers.
So and it wasn't that he was giving me permission
to do that. I already knew that that was the
(10:56):
cop I wanted to be. It was just good to
know that an officer of his status, this legend, this
department ledger, believed in the same thing I believed in.
And it was a pleasure working with this man. And
after my probation was up, he literally saved my career.
I graduated from probation and it ended up at Central
Division and Central Division is where skid Row is now.
(11:18):
I wasn't really excited about going to skid Row at all.
I remember one of my training offers telling me said, Dion,
you have to wear a body kind of in the
work there. The people have hepatitis age HIV, they got
needles in their pocket. You're gonna get in their use
of force and get stuck with a needle and give
your wife the herpes. And I was like, oh my god.
At the time, I was a German phobe. I would
(11:38):
like wear five gloves to search people. You know, That's
just who I was. And it really scared me. And
then he also said the cops they are also fat
and lazy. They just let people do anything they want
to do over there. I was like, what, oh man.
So i get on a freeway and I'm driving and
it's a hot summer day, i think it's in June
or July, and I'm looking at the beautiful picturesque La
(12:01):
skyline and I'm like, this can't be that bad.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Look the Bank tower's over there.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Look at all these skyscrapers, and can't be that bad.
I get off on Sixth Street and as I get
off on Sixth Street, I'm at the basin of the
West Coast, symbol of America's economic might in power, and
I'm seeing people in business suits. I'm seeing people drinking coffee,
smoking cigarettes, getting ready to go for work. And I said,
(12:27):
what is my training officer talking about?
Speaker 4 (12:29):
This is great?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Now, you know, if you get to some bad places,
there's like about a mile and a half stretch of
territory that kind of warned you first.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
You are now entering Hoodville.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Get ready. This did not happen here. As soon as
I crossed Spring Street, I'll never forget. It was like
I tripped and fell into Dante's Inferno, Mad MAXX, Thunderdome,
water World. You any natural disaster move I think an
airplane fell from the sky.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
It was.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
They're really that bad. I'll never forget the smells. I
remember seeing people having sex on the sidewalk. I remember
seeing people shooting up and small crack right two blocks
from a police station in broad daylight. I remember trash
piled so high that it came up to your knees,
tense rocking, people arguing in the street, And I remember
(13:12):
the saddest thing I saw.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Was a young man in.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
A hospital gown walking in the middle of the street
talking to himself clearly he was mentally ill and had
been thrown away. And I said to myself, God, I
can't fix this. I'm going to put my transfer as
soon as I get into the station. I get into
the station, and sure enough, it was the same thing,
The same things I smelled and saw on the outside
was inside, sitting on the bench waiting to get transported
(13:38):
to jail. I'm seeing paroles, gang members, homeless people, mentally
ill people handcuffed to the bench, yelling, screaming, headbutting each other,
set tripping, and I'm like wow, And I'm noticing the
officers are just typing like nothing's happening. And I look
at one of my class bands, I'm like, do you
see what the hell is happening here? And she just
lit some incense and kept on talking. I was like,
what were what happened?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
You know?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I did upstairs on a light and go put my
transfer in. Go put my transfer in. And there was
a sergeant who used to call us all Hermino or
brother in Spanish. He said, hey, Hermino, your officer, Joseph, Hey,
your first two months is going to be spent working
the front desk of Central station. And I was like, Oh,
thank God, God answer my prayer. So I was like, oh,
I don't have to deal with this crap. Two months
breaking the front desk, I was wrong at the front desk,
(14:22):
and it was the first of the month, and every
five ten to twenty minutes, somebody came in from skid
Row with their arm broken backwards where they could swing
it forty five degrees the other way. One lady came
in with her cheeks lacerated so like she had a
second mouth. You could see her teeth. Another man walked
into the station holding his stomach and moves his hand
and his intentions fell out, and I couldn't believe what
(14:46):
I was seeing. And the common thread with all of
these people were I don't want a police report. I
just want an ambulance to take me to the hospital.
I have to live here, because what I didn't realize
was what I did realize was the station was in
the heart of where skid row. I also discovered the
cops there weren't fat and lazy. They were just working
in a time where the justice system didn't support their efforts,
(15:07):
kind of what we're living in right now. So I'm like, man,
get me off this front desk. I can't take it.
And then I get my first basic patrol car and
it was Chinatown like Chinatown, Yes, culture people in the
park stretching and doing taichie and great eating spots.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
And I'm telling you it was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Your blood pressure went down just parking there, right, And
I'm about to write my first ticket. I was there
only five minutes, about to write my first ticket at
Alpine and the off I remember correctly, and we get
a call one A one respond to seventh and San
Julian for the attack in progress. Back then, attack meant rape,
sexual assault. So we're driving like bats out of hill
(15:47):
to get down there, and sure enough we get there
and there's a woman sitting with her legs crossed, rocking
back and forth. She was literally torn to shreds, face
messed up, bleeding, skirt torn, and people were standing around
her mocking her.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And I got out of the car and I tried
to talk to her, and she would and talk.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
To me, and all I hear these gang members excuse
my French saying, oh that ain't gonna talk to you.
Oh you want, you want, you must be new here,
get your back in the car.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Man.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
She ain't gonna tell you nothing, and literally she told
me nothing. I had to take a Jane Dole assault report,
caught her in Ambuesce and that was that. And I
couldn't believe what I saw. So my partner says, let's
not go back here today, and.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You're listening to active senior lead officer in Los Angeles
Dion Joseph share the story of his life and his
work in Los Angeles as a police officer and that
first assignment in Venice Beach Boy. I can only describe
that neighborhood as sketchy. I was there at around the
same time he was. I was living there and it's
much different now, but it was sketchy and dangerous and
(16:47):
still can be late at night. And there was that
training officer who he reported to, Well, we've all had
people we've had to report to that were, let's just say,
people we hoped to never report two again. And then
came his training officer in Oakwood, who fit the stereotype
of what he thought well white racist cops looked like tall, blonde,
(17:10):
blue eyes and a mustache. Only the black people he
was serving in that neighborhood loved him, and I loved
him for a simple reason.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
He was there to serve them.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
He kept telling him again and again that he wasn't
just there to treat the people with dignity who didn't
commit crimes, but to even commit to the principle that
the purpose and the suspects themselves deserved to be treated
with dignity and respect. And then came skid Row and Chinatown.
When we come back more of the story of Dion
(17:41):
Joseph here on our American story and we continue with
(18:11):
our American stories and with law enforcement consultant, author and
active senior lead officer in Los Angeles, Dion Joseph.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
We get back to Chinatown and once again we get
the Fifth and Santa Julian for ad w in progress.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
We get there and.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
First we're wondering where the basic car for that area
is and they're tied up with three people they arrested.
It's kind of a picture how dangerous it was down there.
We get to Fifth in Sant Julian, I see a
man sitting holding his chest on the sidewalk, and sure enough,
somebody stabbed him and punctured his lawn. And he points
down the street to the man who did it, and
(18:51):
I was like, the guy was walking like he wasn't
running away. So I called an ambulance form to go
to detain this guy. And I'll never forget him saying
to me, Oh, why you're so hard up. I'm going
to be out in about two days. DA's going to
reject this case. And I'm like, no, he's not. I
went to this station because one thing I can't stand
is when you hurt people who are poor or downtrodden.
(19:13):
You know, it's part of my DNA. So I went
to this station and I wrote the world's greatest police report.
And I struggled because I was from a unified school
district that really didn't give us crap about me, right.
I literally had an English teacher that said, yeah, and
all you got to do is put your name on
the paper and we'll give you a CEE.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
And I did that, taking the easy way out.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
So to this day, I still struggle with dangelin participles
and antecedents, and you know, as a result of not trying,
that's my fault, not is. Anyway, I sat down and
wrote the greatest police report in the world, dotted every
ie crossed every te plan's everywhere quotations in the right place.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
It was beautiful. Give it to the watch commander.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
In his watch commander, we called him a red pin
and he would keep a red pin and for new
officers he would just completely rip up their reports because
he was an English major. And I think I saw
a tear in his eyes. He said, j if this
is the world's greatest police report, I'm exaggerating their course.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
And I was like, thank you, sir. I took the
guy to jail.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And I just knew that I was going to get
a victim, a homeless victim, some justice.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I came back two days later.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I'm driving down the street and I guess who I
see the ballhead guy who stabbed him.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
And he looked at me and said, as I told you,
I was upset. I was livid.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I went into the detective's office and I said, hey,
I wrote the hell out of that report. And the
detective say, you sure did, Officer Joseph. It was a
great report. And she showed me the disposition of the
District Attorney's office and it says, DA reject because the
victim is a drug addict, and because they're homeless. I
would ask anybody, does that sound fair to you? And
the answer is absolutely not. You know, justice should not
(20:44):
be dealt to people who we believe are perfect people.
You know, it's for everybody. And that was a moment
that changed my life. You always find a catalyst, and
that was my catalyst for why I decided to kind
of stay and be a champion on time of my DNA.
The reason why people thought I was crazy for being
in skid row enthusiastically right was because my parents. My
(21:09):
parents were engaged in outreach their entire life. Their forty
seven year marriage, they helped raise forty one foster children
on top of their four children and three grandchildren. So
I was around for about seventeen of those kids. And
you would think I would have a little resentment for
not getting one hundred percent of my parents love, but no,
(21:30):
it was actually wonderful to see my parents changed these kids' lives,
whether they were with us for two weeks or for
two years. And the cool thing about my parents, it
wasn't just about the kids. They would often sneak and
counsel the parents, so the parents would end up being
better parents when the kids finally went back to them,
and I'll never forget. We took in kids who are
(21:52):
sexually assaulted, homeless, neglected, malnourished. We even took home with
neo Nazi and this kid's father told them, don't eat
the n words food. I'm going to come sneak a
big mac to you. And I couldn't believe it, right,
So the father never came with that big mach. So
after about the third or fourth day, I think the
kid got hungry and we caught him in a refrigerator
sneaking some collar greens and black eyed peas and and
(22:15):
it was delicious and he didn't buy. He re watched
that the inwards foods.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
It's not going to kill you, right.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
And after about another month with us, he saw he
thought he was black. He was like, man, you know,
we got pulled over by the police and this kid
was like you just stoped, just can here black?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
And bro like no, no, no, kid, no do I'll
never forget that.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
It was a road trip to Louisiana that was It
was hilarious and he didn't want to go back to
his own dad. He ended up thankfully being sent to
his mother, who wasn't a neo Nazi. And uh, just
watching my parents change the life of these kids was
incredible to me. Then my dad, he was a self
made man, grew up in the Jim Crow South, dealt
with real tangible racism, not this trend third racism that
(23:01):
we're dealing with today. We got kids today acting like
they've lived through Jim Crow and they don't. They have
no idea what real tangible palpable cross burning you sit
on the back of the bus racism was like my
dad grew up in that and because of being.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
So poor and so broke, being abandoned.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
By his family at times, he turned to crying, and
of course he changed his life. Found the Lord. Met
my mom in church, or actually fell in love with
my mom in church. They met at a hospital, and
basically he said, I was never going to hurt anybody
again to get what I needed. So when he became
a successful businessman, he would always reach back and hire
(23:42):
individuals who reminded him of himself. And I didn't know this.
I was going through my background investigations with the department,
and they, of course one of the questions they ask
is have you ever associated with any known felons? And
of course I was telling the truth. No, squeaky clean.
You guys checked me out. You guys talked to my
fourth grade teacher. What the hell you know this right?
And turns out my dad says, sorry, son.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
You did.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I said, what are you talking about? He said, you
remember Cowboy the framer?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Oh he is an ex murderer. What you remember Andre,
the guy you dig ditches with. I was like, yeah,
he was a drug dealer.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
And I was like what.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
But I calmed down when I realized the beauty of
what my dad did. He gave people a second chance
who reminded him of himself, and if they wanted that
second chance, he was going to help them.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
He believed in hands up, not hands outs. He believed
in the.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Hands up giving people a hand up. So watching this
inspired me and I loved he never called his employees
his employees. He always called him his friends. And I
was amazed by this.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
And you'll never hear.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Me call a person in skid roll bum, a hobow,
a transient. I will always call them my friends, even
if they're cussing me out, I will always call them
my friends. And then, lastly, my mother and father fed
the homeless religiously every Saturday, cooking fresh, home cooked meals
as if she was cooking for her family, and taking
it down to parks and helping families. And she did
(25:04):
that up until she got sick and passed away. So
after about three months of being in skid Row, all
fears went away, and I realized that I was home.
This is what my parents were preparing me for, and
all I was doing was in my own way, carrying
out their mission. And I fell in love with trying
to help and change the culture of skid Row. As
(25:25):
a patrol cop. I loved the community then just as
much as I did now. I just went about it differently.
Arrested everybody and their mother.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
That's what I did.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
If you were selling crack, if you were assaulting people,
if you murdered somebody, I'm going to drive up and
I'm going to stuff you in the back of my car,
all with several of your friends if I can. And
that's a noble effort. There's nothing wrong with that, nothing
racist or cold about that. You know, you break the law,
you got to do the time. But what it did
was it kind of left It gave me a perception
problem to the community because I didn't have time to
(25:56):
stop and say what I was doing or why, because
I was so busy. It was just like, I'm just
here to arrest black people. So I ended up getting
one of many names at the time, RoboCop.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
I have had many names.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
So the first name was Uncle Tom, a house negro,
white man's boot licking lap dog. I heard that one, right. Yeah,
the combinations were just incredible. Then came RoboCop because they
I walked like a robot. I had all this gear
on me, and it's like you couldn't get away from me.
I knew every crevice of the area.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And you're listening to Dion Joseph tell one heck of
his story, not just about himself, not just about the
people he defends and calls his friends, those people on
skid row, but also the model that his family provided
for him, adopting so many people whose society would cast off.
And you know, here on this show we tell stories
(26:47):
about people whose society casts off, but great people, particularly
people of faith, well give a second chance, and give
a real second chance. I hand up, not a handout,
and very different things. And you could hear it in
Dion Joseph's voice and even a chuckle explaining the difference
between a hand up and a handout. When we come
(27:10):
back more of this remarkable story. It's a story about
so many things, but in the end, about grace and
love behind a badge. The story of Dion Joseph continues
here on our American Stories, and we continue with our
(27:39):
American stories and law enforcement consultant, author and active senior
lead officer in Los Angeles, Dion Joseph, let's continue with
the story.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So then, after about seven years in the street and
then two years undercover, I got the opportunity to become
a senior lead officer, another job I didn't want. I
became a senior lead officer, and you know, I didn't
want to smile away and kiss babies. I wanted to
go back to doing what I was usually doing, fighting
bad crime and getting bad guys off the street. But
I was doing the same thing, expecting the same results,
(28:12):
different results. And I looked back on all the arrest
I made and all the actions I took to try
to make the community better, and nothing changed, because that
once again the justice system. For every bad guy put
in jail, they were out the next day and they
were replaced by two more So something I'll never forget.
And I don't mean to preach, but I'm sitting on
Main Street frustrated. Main Street was one of the most
(28:35):
dangerous streets at the time, and I'm parked there and
I'm seeing drug dealers had drug deals happening all over
the place, right in front of my face. And I said,
I just parked my car and said a prayer. I said, God,
how can I fix this? You know these people are suffering.
What can I do? And all I heard in my
spirit was stay here, okay. I parked my car there
(28:55):
for six hours, and what happened was the drug there
is what they expected me to do his park a
few minutes and leave, but I stayed there for six hours.
It was so funny because drug dealers kept coming up
to my car, going, hey, anytime for you to go
do something else, anytime for you to go home?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
And something told me. I said I am home, and
they were like wow.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
So I left for about three quarters of them came back.
I came back, park for another hour. They left, now
was a half. I kept doing it until it was
like no drug dealers on the block. And I did
this for a week. I called it the sit down technique,
and about seven days after doing it, I saw this
man come up to me. There's something called a silent
(29:36):
majority in any community. These are the people who they
support police, they support law and order, but they have
a figure it of a literal gun to their head
telling him not to talk to the police even if
you get stabbed, raped or shot. And this man knocks
on my window and I think he's going to be
another drug dealer asking me to leave. And I rolled
down the window and he says, hey, I don't know
who you are, but don't you ever leave this block.
(29:58):
This is the first time I've been able to walk
down the street in about fifteen years. It worked, and
I said, okay, it's working on this block, so let
me switch to the next block. So I called it
the CID down technique and it started to reduce crime.
I was reducing crime by myself, and I reduced crime
eighteen percent with no resources. And people couldn't believe it.
They couldn't believe that Main Street was clean, Winston Street
(30:20):
was clean, some parts of Fifth Street were getting clean.
It was crazy, but I couldn't do it for long.
A lot of people focus on me, but I couldn't
do it myself. So as I was starting to lose ground,
God sent some incredible officers to help me hold down
Main Street in the streets that I took care of
until the Safer Cities initiative, and that's when fifty incredible
officers were brought to the division to focus on skid
(30:42):
row and help reduce crime. And while they went on
the offensive, I went on the defensive and tried to
build relationships to let the community know that we're not
doing this to you, We're doing this for you. Because
we had activists in the area who were actively telling
them that we were trying to get rid of them,
we wanted to criminalize them, and none of.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
That was true.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
What are the police supposed to do when ninety five
human beings die from non homicidal deaths in one year
in the fifty block radius, what are we supposed to
let it happen? That's the cruelty. The cruelty is not
enforcing the law. The cruelty is not enforcing the law.
What are we supposed to do about that? Sit on
our hands because it's not. The optics aren't friendly. No,
we refuse to do that. We recognize a skid Row
(31:25):
accounter for like fifty percent of all the crime in
the area. And we went in and it wasn't just enforcement,
it was enhancements, outreach, and we were arresting people for
the sake of getting them to programs that they normally
would refuse without a push. But now, for the first
time in my career, we had the justice system, working
(31:47):
with US Parole Probation, the DA's office. Everybody was on board.
We have to fix skid Row. It's a disaster. And
during that time, I always say, if you want somebody
to change, you have to create an environm make conducers
to that. That's common sense, that's not political, that's not
left or right, And I'll never forget during the time
where we created the environment through enforcement, enhancement and outreach,
(32:12):
it made certain individuals ready for help. So as a
senior lead officer, I began networking with housing agencies inside
skid Row and outside of skied Row. I did that
on my own because I know there were individuals who
are desperately wanting to get off the street. Not everybody,
but I house about one hundred and fifty people in
ten years who were ready because of our push Now
(32:34):
that's nothing. In skied rollers about two thousand people on
average whose choose to sleep in the street. There's very
few people who aren't there by choice. Okay, I would
say about thirty five percent of the individuals are there
because the party, because this is the place they can
go and do their thing. Many people aren't homeless. But
why didn't those other two thousand come for help? Because
(32:56):
they weren't ready. They weren't ready. But by the grace
of God, due to the we got one hundred and
fifty people off the streets. And then through the initiative,
we got a lot twenty two hundred and twenty five
individuals signed up for programs. Now I'm not saying everybody
completed the program, but about thirty percent of them in
my estimation did. And people were going home, people were
reuniting with family members, We were finding.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Missing people, murderers. It was a beautiful time.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And then I used my resources to build bridges with
the community. Community members that normally wouldn't talk to the police.
Of course, you had your extreme activist groups. There's no
talking to them. They don't want to sit at the table.
They say they want to sit at the table. No
they want to completely turn it over just to feel
a sense of power. That ends up doing more damage
(33:40):
to the people that claim they're trying to help them
than anything else. It just made me realize that community policing,
grassroots community policing, does work, but you got to put
the work in.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
You can't be scared.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And I helped this group get paint trash cans to
beautify the community. They literally clean the community up better
than the city did. No shot at the city. It's
just these folks were more passionate about it. They painted
murals saying these are black people, right, saying we want clean, safe,
healthy streets black people. You know, but the news never
(34:11):
reported this stuff. Skid Row was relatively safe and they
did it all purpose. You know, they only want one
narrative about the police, right. But the reality is, during
two thousand and five and twenty eleven, skid Row was
a relatively safe place to live. Here are the effects
of it, and it was just a beautiful time.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
I have no regrets.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I've saved more lives than anybody who criticizes me for
being a police officer. And everyone who criticized me, they
either turned their head and look the other way. I
would not change this career or the path that I've
taken for anything in the world. I'm still going to
continue to try to be a light in a dark
place for the I remember every time I go on vacation.
If I'm going thirty days and I come back, it's
(34:53):
like their long lost father just came home.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Damn, Roma, God, where you're been managedment crazy out here?
Speaker 3 (34:57):
I'm like you, Remember I was telling you about Bill
Snow and you know him driving down the street and
people screaming his name from the rooftop. The same thing
happens to me. People don't understand why I'm so passionate.
You can call me crazy, you can call me whatever
you want. I touch these things, and until you touch it,
you will never ever understand why I'm so passionate about
bringing in a sense of order to skid Row. Yes,
(35:19):
law enforcement is such an important component anything you want
to do, whether it's a noble cause such as get
people safe and clean or have a concert, if it's
not safe, no one's going to go. If you want
to run a school, if it's not safe, kids aren't
going to learn. And I'll be public safety as a
cornerstone of all of that. I believe in crime control,
and when you say that, people start shaking, you know.
(35:39):
But the truth is, I also believe in due process.
And we need to stop bilifying the concept of law
enforcement because places like skied Row needs order. If we're
going to save lives down there, if we're going to
get people into these programs, we need the justice system
to work again in a matter where they before, where
if I brought a drug addict to you, you put
them in a mandatory drug program that doesn't exist anymore.
(36:01):
So all I can do right now is be visible
and try to deter people from getting hurt. But that's
the system. I'm not saying this because I hate the homeless.
I'm saying this because I care about them. This is
not a police perspective. It's coming from a perspective of
a human man who cares, who.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Just happens to be a cop. And that's me in
a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
And a terrific job on the production editing and story
gathering by our own Greg Hangler and a special thanks
to Dion Joseph for sharing his story and it's a
heck of a story where all of us can learn
from that moment he was on Main Street watching drug dealers,
as he said, everywhere around him, and he offered up
that prayer to God, Lord, how can.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I help this?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
He heard two words from God, stay here, and it's
what he did. And he did what he called the
sit down technique, and that is just sit down. And
what do you know, just by his presence, well, the
drug dealers slowly started to fade away. In fact, one
of them even walked up to him and sort of said, hey,
when are you going home? Ain't it time for you
(37:06):
to go home? His rebuttal was I am home. And
then that knock on the window. I don't know who
you are, but don't leave the block. Don't leave the block.
By the way, this is a call to arms for
so many men and women who can well sit and
be present on a block that might have problems.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Just your presence can make the difference. You don't have
to be a law enforcement officer.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
To make a difference by doing the sit This story
was about so many things, public safety being a cornerstone,
but due process too, and compassion and mercy and love
for the.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Least of these.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
The story of RoboCop RoboCop Dion Joseph No robot at all.
Here on our American stories,
Host
Lee Habeeb
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