Fighting Crime in Downtown Los Angeles with Love, Respect, and God

On this episode of Our American Stories, Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph recounts how he built community connections and relationships—and changed police perceptions with one profound phrase: "I love you."

Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Dion Joseph is a law enforcement consultant, author,

(00:30):
and active senior lead officer in the notorious downtown Los
Angeles district known as skid Row. He's here to share
another story with us. This one begins with Dion visiting
a juvenile detention center. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So I go to first day and I go through
the gates and they buzz me in and I'm looking
at it looks just like a prison yard. You have
the Hispanics working out over here, you have the Black's
working out, the shooting dice over here. And I'm like,
oh my god, these kids are going to hate me
and just something in my spirits. Don't worry about just
telling me you love them. They brought the kids into
the class. Some of them thought I was there to
arrest them. I said, calm down, I don't even want

(01:06):
to know your names. I'm here for one reason, and
that's to tell you I love you, and some of
them laughed at me. I says, you can laugh all
you want, but I love you no matter what you
do or what you say. I figuratively put down my
badge and gun and I told them my story, and
then I made them trust me. And then I started
bringing in these mentors. I brought in my wife, whose
brother ended up going to a prison sadly, and I'm

(01:31):
talking about the impact of your family. And what they
told me was after about several months of me doing
that and taking them on a tour of skid row,
their grades went up to grade levels and they credited
a police officer for it. These are the things that
the media doesn't talk about. And of course I don't
brag about it my faith. I don't brag about the

(01:51):
good things that I do. I only feel the need
to talk about it because everybody today is suffering from
what we call availability bias, and their only thing to
be avail to them about police officers is the negative.
We have eight hundred thousand men and women who are
doing an incredible job, but of course, and every profession
there is a negative exception, and when they read their
ugly head they steal the headlines from officers like myself

(02:13):
and others thousands of us across the country who are
doing things just like this and doing their jobs nobly
and with dignity and respect. I always talk about God
ordering your steps because I always thought senior lead officers,
which are community liaison officers, right, all the day was smile,
wave and kiss babies and run errands for the captain.
I used to tease these guys when I was a
patrol cop. Right, We're doing real police work and you're

(02:34):
just kissing babies. And when I was talked to a
lieutenant who I respected, her name was Lieutenant Granmala. She
came to me said, Joseph, I think you'd be perfect
for the senior lead spot. I was like, what the heck, no, ma'am,
I don't want to do that job. And she says, Dion,
if you get that spot, you're probably going to do
more damage to crime than you ever will as a
patrol cop. So that kind of attracted me a little bit,

(02:56):
and plus I respected her, you know, so I said,
I'm gonna go try out for it. This is all God,
this is right. Nobody could tell me about the existence
of God. Now I was supposed to shore up for
my oral interview. I was purposely given the wrong time
by a sergeant there who didn't want me in his
unit because he heard I was a hard worker and

(03:17):
I was going to make everybody look bad, and so
politics got involved, so they changed my time. So when
I got to the oral interview, everybody's leaving. I said,
where's everybody going? I'm supposed to be here doing my thing.
And the captain looks at me and says, well, Joseph,
you were supposed to be here too, And I was like, Sir,
I didn't have anything to do with that. I have

(03:38):
the text right here. I was told to be here.
And he said, okay, well come on in. They sat
back down, and it was like God took over the interview.
They didn't have They couldn't ask me a question. I
was just going in about my experience in schedule, how
much I cared about the homelessen. And I wasn't sure
that I got the spot because the very sergeant they

(03:58):
gave me the wrong time. What's sitting in the interview room.
So I was like, I don't think I got it.
Here's the power of God. I'm leaving the interview in
my suit. I left my backup weapon at home. I'm
driving in my personal vehicle down Fifth Wall. I make
a left on Fifth Street and I see a bank
robber who would rob banks from Arizona to California that

(04:22):
no one was able to catch, and he's just walking
down the street like nothing was happening. I'm like, that's him,
but I wasn't sure. I opened my center console and
I can't believe. I have the flyer balled up in
my center console. I'm like, oh, yep, that's it. I
flip around the block, I park, I get out of
the car, I walk towards and I say, hey, don't run,

(04:42):
I'll catch you. Let's just walk over here to the
station and get this over with. And he said, I
knew you'd find me sooner or later. I don't know
what the hell that was about. Took him to the station,
handcuffed him, and I couldn't believe. When I brought him in,
the deputy chief came out of his office. The lieutenant
was jumping up and down, and I'm just sitting here
and everybody's just so happy I caught this guy, and
I was like, wow, So I think that's what garanted
me the spot talk about the power of God, because

(05:06):
I believe that if that didn't happen, I would not
have got the spot that day. So anyway, then I
used my resources to build bridges with the community. Community
members that normally wouldn't talk to the police. There was
a group called United Coalition East Project, so they never
had a cop come and talk to them. But one
of their members heard of me in my reputation and

(05:29):
he sent me a blind copy email and I was like,
what's this an invite to a meeting? Blind copy? I'll
show up anyway. So I walked into the meeting and
there's twelve angry black faces looking at me, like what
the hell is he doing here? And even the guy
who invited me was like, I don't know what you're
doing here, fool. You invited me, right, and I'll never

(05:49):
forget it. I looked on the walls and I saw
paintings kids, five year old's paintings, pictures of police officers
shooting children in the head. That's called me doctor, the
same kind of indoctrination that I was receiving as a
young man myself. And the average person would have looked
at that and just walked out something in my spirit says,

(06:09):
don't give up. I kept coming for six months. I
kept coming to every meeting, let him know who I was,
what I was going to do, supporting them and some
of the things they were trying to do. And I
think about the six months. I walked into the office
and I noticed the paintings were gone. So I said, hey, Oge,
hey Leslie, where's all the cool paintings of cops murdering kids?

(06:29):
And they said, we didn't want to offend you, Dion,
And that touched my heart. Now the names were starting
to change. They went to funny names like officer bibblehead, officer,
tight shirt, officer, male stripper, and then it went to Rambro.
I had a homeless encampment, a whole encampment that people say,
we call you Rambro. I was like, why do you

(06:51):
call me Rambro? They said, because if somebody message was
with us, you're like a one man army who comes
to our rescue. And I was in tears. I had
to walk away. I said, that's one of my favorites.
But when they called me Dion that day, it changed everything.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's changed everything. That availability bias eight hundred thousand members
of law enforcement we only hear about the few bad actors,
Dion Joseph's story, and the story of law enforcement across
this great country, serving all of us, rich and poor,
big homes, small homes, and the homeless. Here on our
American Stories, Lihabibe here the host of our American Stories.

(07:35):
Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from
across this great country, stories from our big cities and
small towns. But we truly can't do the show without you.
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love what you hear, go
to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories

(07:57):
dot com and give