June 30, 2025 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph shares a vivid story about how he helped the women living on L.A.'s notorious Skid Row.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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.
The Safer Cities Initiative, as implemented in Los Angeles' Notorious
skid Row in September of two thousand and six, was
enacted as a part of their crime reduction effort. Skid
Row is a fifty four block area in downtown LA
(00:32):
that has become synonymous with homelessness, crime, and drugs. Dean
Joseph as a law enforcement consultant, author an active senior
lead officer in the downtown LA skid Row community.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Let's take a listen, Okay. In two thousand and five,
the year before the initiative and all my efforts and
efforts and all other officers there, we had ninety five
people die from non homicidal deaths. We had thirty four
people in two thousand and two die from homicides. So
three years into the efforts, we look at two thousand
and nine and we had sixty three people die in
(01:06):
skid Row, which is a think about thirty three percent reduction,
and we only had five found dead in the streets.
You know why, because we were able to enforce the
ten laws from six am to nine pm, because if
we could see somebody getting raped, we can save them.
If we could see somebody overdosing, we can save them.
The fire department can save them. And it worked, it
really worked. And we, of course we allowed them to
sleep after nine o'clock because there wasn't enough shelter and
(01:30):
it was just a really beautiful time in homicides. We
looked at just the following year of two thousand and seven,
I believe, and I think in the whole division six
people were murdered. Guess how many people were murdered in
skid Row three. I always tell people, look, I know
what we do is not sexy. You want sexy, call
the fire department. They're handsome guys. They look at our calendars.
(01:53):
I love the fire Department. They're hardworking guys. Station nine
shot out really great guys. But hey, they do to
feel good stuff. You know. Our job is to respond
to the true systemic failures of our government failing to
deal with poverty, homelessness, crime in a common sense way
on a consistent basis. That's our and the mental health
(02:15):
of failure. So anyway, everything was going fine, and everything's
going fantastic, until about twenty eleven, and that was the
beginning of the end for crime control in the state
of California. First, we had the governor come up with
ABY one oh nine, which basically took individuals who were
in prison off the backs of the states and put
(02:37):
it on the already over burdened probation department. So they
were so backed up that instead of supervising these individuals directly,
they gave them ankle bracelets and told them to check
in at a kiosk. So what happens, These guys cut
their ankle bracests south and now they're running around committee crime.
Then comes twenty fourteen Prop. Forty seven. They turned serious
(02:57):
crimes into non serious crimes. That made it difficult for
us to keep criminals like burdery suspects, burdery from the
vehicle suspects, theft suspects, to send them back and hold
them account but made it very difficult for us to
do it. And then it comes twenty and sixteen. I
couldn't believe that the voters voted for it, seeing thirteen
years of crime reduction dissipate Prop. Fifty seven, which turned
(03:21):
violent felonies into non violent felonies, and I couldn't believe it.
I mean, if someone took your love one a female love,
onto a bar and put GHB in their drink and
knocked them unconscious and took them to a room and
raped them. The average person, if you ask them, they
would tell you that's a violent crime. It's not a
vinent crime anymore. If someone walked through my house right
(03:42):
now and started firing at AK forty seven, but they
missed me, by the grace of God, you and I
believe that's a vinent crime. The average sane, rational person
thinks that's a violent crime. Under the new law, it's
non violent. It's still a felony, but non violet. And
what it did was it created a lever to release hundreds,
tens of thousands of individuals into the street. And where
(04:03):
did most of them come? To? Skid row? So now
I was watching the justice system fail again. Imagine being
in what's tall of recovery zone called skid row, where
there's one hundred and eight programs designed to help people
with the narrative issues, but there's a drug dealer standing
right outside the door or inside the door. In some
of these low income supportive housing units, they're worse than
(04:27):
being on the street. And the reason why that is
is a lot of the people who got housed in
skid row still old drug debts to the local loan shark,
and the loan shark finds out that the order drug dealer,
and the loan shark and drug dealer finds out they're
still in there and says, hey, guess what, you got
to sell this drugs for me in this hotel. Help
me turn this place out, or if you won't do it,
(04:48):
you have to get out of your own room and
let me move in. So now you've got somebody who's
house who's now back on the street. Because the criminal
element is able to run wild and rampant once again.
Women are being victimized at a high rate that tents
are up. We can't take him down. The most tragic
thing I ever saw was I was parked and these
tents were up, and it was about twelve noon, and
(05:10):
I didn't hear anything. Everything was quiet. I went to
the station, came to work the next day, and I
saw a report at twelve noon at fifth in San Pedro,
where I was park there was a woman who was
savagely raped by three males. I was parked there. But
even though that's a failure, I look back on the
successes and the one thing they can't take away from
(05:31):
me is the relationship that I built with the people
on top of housing them. During the period where we
had it safe, I created several programs off the cuffs.
One was called a Ladies Night, and Ladies Night was
birth in my heart. In nineteen ninety nine, I was
an undercover investigator in skid Row and talk about seeing
the real underbelly of skid Row. I couldn't believe it.
(05:52):
A I couldn't believe they didn't recognize me as big
as my arms were at the time. But be you know,
it was just seeing drug program operate, raiders participating in
the drug drug trade and allowing drug dealers into the
facility and handing out drug. I couldn't believe what I
was seeing. It really broke my heart when I saw
these people, I felt had no hope. Uh So, working
(06:14):
under cover, I remember I had to go arrest sex workers.
There were two sex workers I was looking for and
I could never get them. I could never put on
the right costume right. So finally I thought I had
the right one. I was dressed as a preacher. I
have a little collar on, you know. I'm driving through
the streets and I see the girl. I'm like, I'm
gonna get her this time. And I pull up next
her and say, hey girl, I'm gonna lay hands on you. Right.
(06:36):
She looks at me and says, what do you need,
big daddy? Lips split, open, eyes swollen shut, skirt torn,
and she's walking looking for another customer. And my heart
just broke and I broke my cover. I said, look,
it's me. I'm trying to get you, but I'm not
gonna arrest you. Please tell me who did this to you.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And you're listening to Dion Joseph sharing with you his
story of his time spent un skid row. And for
a time, boy, that death rate on skid row went down,
and then came rules and rags and policies that made
it just more difficult for someone like Dion and cops
across this country, they get harder for them to do
(07:14):
their jobs and keep us safe, including the most vulnerable
among us. When we come back, more of Dion Joseph's
story here on our American Stories. Here at our American Stories,
we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith,
(07:36):
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
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
(07:56):
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American stories in Dion Joseph's story. He's a law
enforcement consultant, author, and active senior lead officer in the
(08:18):
downtown Los Angeles skid Road community. Let's continue with Dion.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
There were two sex workers I was looking for, and
I could never get them. I could never put on
the right costume right. So finally I thought I had
the right one. I was dressed as a preacher. I
have a little collar on, you know. I pulled up
next her and say, hey, Giryl, I'm gonna lay hands
on you right lips, split, open, eyes swollen, shut, skirt torn.
My heart just broke, and I broke my cover. I said, look,
(08:46):
it's me. I'm trying to get you, but I'm not
gonna arrest you. Please tell me who did this to you.
She said, I got to live here. You either arrest
me or let me go. And I had to let
her go, and the same guy that violated her violated
several other women in the skid Royal. I couldn't do
anything about it, bign I didn't have the resources. But
in two thousand and eight we were having the same problems.
(09:06):
The ladies were telling me about it in skid Row.
They felt I was the only officer they could talk to.
So I said, you know what, let me talk to
you about your rights. Because what they were hearing from pimps,
from activists, from their johns, is you go to the police,
the police are going to arrest you because you're a
drug add I'll tell the police you were a drug
addict and they're going to arrest you too. Or I
know you have a warrant, so I'll tell you if
(09:27):
you have a warrant, the police are going to arrest you.
None of these things were true. So I established some
really great relationships with the SRO and they allowed me
to use one of their community centers and the hardest
skid Row called the James Jim Wood center, and I
created Ladies' Night and I rolled out the red carpet
for these lady and I think I set out about
fifty cheers, but I only expected about fifteen ladies because
usually people on skid row don't show up for things.
(09:51):
But a grace of God, about one hundred and seventy
five homeless women came to the first Lady's Night, and
I treated them just as if they lived in West
la Hey. I had a da there, I had a
city council woman there. I had all these people there
that normally they wouldn't expect to come talk to them.
But the whole thing was, I don't care if you're
in a pipe, on parole, a prostitute, or off swinging
(10:11):
from a pole or undocumented. If somebody hurt you, it
is my job to serve you. And my brother and
I also taught them some self defense as well, and
not enough to kick my own butt, but just enough
to add seconds to their life should they get assaulted
in the street. And you should have seen the impact
it had. I had made connections for life with those
ladies sharing their stories of abuse. And I just sat
(10:33):
there and listened all night long to these ladies they
felt listen to, they felt heart. Now here was the
wonderful gift from that. Two years later, we had a serial,
a taxi cap Cereal rapist driving through skid row, picking
up women and just doing things I won't even mention
on this program to these women. And three of the
(10:54):
women that he sexually assaulted went to Ladies' Night, my
first Lady's night. Guess who they can the police and
we put that guy away for the rest of his life.
But the funny story side note behind that was when
they were brought into court to testify, they wouldn't get
on the stand, and they kept asking them, why you
guys won't testify. We're not going to get on the
(11:14):
stand unless the Angel shows up. So I'm at home,
sitting in my Superman draws, drinking on the S Strawberry smoothie,
trying to endraw my day off, and I get a
call from the DA's office, Joseph, They're not going to
get on the stand if you don't come. So I'm like,
but I'm in my Superman draws. I'm trying to relax.
I'm watching Marie. I want to know who the baby
(11:35):
daddy is, And I said, you know, what this is
too important. So I suited up, went down there, and
when I walked into the waiting room, all three of
the victims collapsed into my arms and they went and
testified and put that man away for the rest of
his life. Hopefully. That was one incredible moment that no
(11:57):
one could take away from me, and to this day
I still have a great connection with the women of
skied Row. During that same time I work with the missions,
the shelters, I had to learn a hard lesson about
once again, once again, about judgments and stereotypes. I always
thought the missions were scams. I thought that they were
there to basically corral the homeless, feed them soup kitchens,
(12:18):
and then drive off a Mercedes bends and not change
the thing. I always felt the missions were a problem.
They were the problem. They were the main source of
the problem. As low as the homeless were going there,
you know, there was always going to be problems. And
I'll never forget when I first became a senior lead officer,
my captain says to me, Officer Joseph, you're doing great
out there. You're making a lot of arrest, but that's
not what I hired you to do. You have to
(12:40):
build relationships with the community. And I was like, what
do you mean. I want you to go meet with
the director of the Union Rescue Mission. His name is
Andy Bales, and I was like, oh God, the mission.
So I went. I showed up. I saw him. I
shook his hand and said, Hey, I'm Officer Joseph. Captain
told me to meet you. Here's my business card, and
nice talking to you. And as I'm walking away, he says, hey,
your captain said I had you for my thirty minutes.
(13:01):
Oh man, I got crying to fight and everything. So
he says, come walk with me. So we're walking through
the first level and I've been in there many times
making arrest and I'm seeing people arrested before. Hey, that
guy is smoking crack right there. Oh arrested that he
got a warm for his arrest right there. I'm like,
I'm judging right, But he must have sensed it because
he was taking me to the second, third, and fourth floor.
(13:23):
Every floor got better, and by the time I got
to the fifth floor, I saw individuals who I arrested.
I arrested them. And when I arrested them a year
or two years ago, I said to myself, not because
I was mean spirited. This person's going to die just
based on the trajectory of life that they were on,
and these people were cleaning, sober and running their program.
(13:45):
I'll never forget. One lady approached me and says, you're
a RoboCop. I remember you, And I'm like, I don't
remember you, beautiful lady, And she goes, well, you probably
don't remember me. Back then, I had no teeth. Remember
I told you I wanted your family to catch AIDS
and die.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Oh oh you.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I forgave you for that a long time ago, right,
And she says, Officer Joseph, I'm doing well in here.
I'm doing good. I hope you're proud of me, I said, baby,
I am. She says, but let me tell you the truth.
If you guys don't deal with these dope dealers and
long stars out here, I don't know how long we're
going to last in here. That gave me pause. It
made me realize that not only did they need the
(14:22):
shelters and the programs, they also needed the police. And
I made a whole shift, mindset shift, and I became
a guardian for the drug programs for the shelters, and
I did everything I could to make sure I kept
drug dealers and gang members. And when I noticed that
while I was doing it, people were graduating from drug
programs at a higher rate. The missions were reporting less guns,
(14:43):
less drugs. Oh. They let me come in there and
watch videos and all the time inspire on drug dealers.
It was just a wonderful thing that God was just
blessing me. But one of those beautiful things they did
was they allowed me to engage in a program called
the Jest Like You Program. I created this program after
being invited to the mission to talked to the kids.
And I went there, and the mistake I made was
(15:03):
I patronized the kids. I walked in there and I
did the old song and dance. Hey, I'm a police officer,
I'm your friend. Hey, little billy, what do you want
to be when you grow up? A football player? Hey Johnny,
what do you want to be when you grew up
a fireman? No? I did the old song and dance right,
the old soft shoot. And then there was a twelve
year old girl and she was looking eastbound down at
(15:25):
the street, and I was kind of insulted. The party
was over here, right, I said, Hey, lady, the party's
over here. A young lady, what do you want to
be when you grow up? And she looked at me,
this beautiful chocolate black girl, and she says, I'm probably
going to be like these people having on sex on
the sidewalk if you don't get me and my family
out of here, shut me down. I got emotional. I
(15:45):
couldn't continue. I walked out and let my partners handle
the rest. I went to the station. I'm sitting at
my desk praying to God and said, what can I do?
What can I do? Who can I put in these
front of these kids who were just like them? D
nam ann name. The idea popped on my head, that's
just like your program was born in. I found individuals
who could be mentors to these kids who they didn't
grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth. They
(16:07):
were in foster care, they were homeless, they were abused,
and somehow, some way they turned their life around. I
brought a judge, I brought a lawyer. I brought a
former actor. I brought a guy who I found in
a trash band covered in scabies, okay, and I put
a poem in his jailhouse bag and he read the
(16:29):
poem and somehow it inspired him to change his life
and he went on to manage hotels in the area.
I couldn't believe it. It's amazing, you know. That's why
I can't stop, you know, it's just like I'm always
looking for the miracle.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And a terrific job on the editing, producing, and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler and a special thanks to
Dion Joseph. He's a law enforcement consultant, author, an active
senior lead officer in the downtown Los Angeles area of
the notorious Skid Road community and doing what he can
to make life better for the people there and safer.
(17:05):
And I can just picture that lady's night and his
skepticism running it, because not your typical ladies' night. But
yet he treated these women as if they were women
of high society, like they were from Beverly Hills, treating
them with the same dignity and respect. They had rights.
He wanted to let them know, and they had someone
who cared to talk to. He was there to listen
(17:28):
and serve, and what a beautiful thing. And all those
women showed up and then ultimately we're able to talk
to him about their fears and the monsters who were
preying on them, The story of Dion Joseph, and the
story of so many of the people who serve us
in uniform, doing good, seeing things that most of us
(17:49):
well don't want to see and couldn't handle if we
did his story, their story. 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.
The Safer Cities Initiative, as implemented in Los Angeles' Notorious
skid Row in September of two thousand and six, was
enacted as a part of their crime reduction effort. Skid
Row is a fifty four block area in downtown LA
(00:32):
that has become synonymous with homelessness, crime, and drugs. Dean
Joseph as a law enforcement consultant, author an active senior
lead officer in the downtown LA skid Row community.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Let's take a listen, Okay. In two thousand and five,
the year before the initiative and all my efforts and
efforts and all other officers there, we had ninety five
people die from non homicidal deaths. We had thirty four
people in two thousand and two die from homicides. So
three years into the efforts, we look at two thousand
and nine and we had sixty three people die in
(01:06):
skid Row, which is a think about thirty three percent reduction,
and we only had five found dead in the streets.
You know why, because we were able to enforce the
ten laws from six am to nine pm, because if
we could see somebody getting raped, we can save them.
If we could see somebody overdosing, we can save them.
The fire department can save them. And it worked, it
really worked. And we, of course we allowed them to
sleep after nine o'clock because there wasn't enough shelter and
(01:30):
it was just a really beautiful time in homicides. We
looked at just the following year of two thousand and seven,
I believe, and I think in the whole division six
people were murdered. Guess how many people were murdered in
skid Row three. I always tell people, look, I know
what we do is not sexy. You want sexy, call
the fire department. They're handsome guys. They look at our calendars.
(01:53):
I love the fire Department. They're hardworking guys. Station nine
shot out really great guys. But hey, they do to
feel good stuff. You know. Our job is to respond
to the true systemic failures of our government failing to
deal with poverty, homelessness, crime in a common sense way
on a consistent basis. That's our and the mental health
(02:15):
of failure. So anyway, everything was going fine, and everything's
going fantastic, until about twenty eleven, and that was the
beginning of the end for crime control in the state
of California. First, we had the governor come up with
ABY one oh nine, which basically took individuals who were
in prison off the backs of the states and put
(02:37):
it on the already over burdened probation department. So they
were so backed up that instead of supervising these individuals directly,
they gave them ankle bracelets and told them to check
in at a kiosk. So what happens, These guys cut
their ankle bracests south and now they're running around committee crime.
Then comes twenty fourteen Prop. Forty seven. They turned serious
(02:57):
crimes into non serious crimes. That made it difficult for
us to keep criminals like burdery suspects, burdery from the
vehicle suspects, theft suspects, to send them back and hold
them account but made it very difficult for us to
do it. And then it comes twenty and sixteen. I
couldn't believe that the voters voted for it, seeing thirteen
years of crime reduction dissipate Prop. Fifty seven, which turned
(03:21):
violent felonies into non violent felonies, and I couldn't believe it.
I mean, if someone took your love one a female love,
onto a bar and put GHB in their drink and
knocked them unconscious and took them to a room and
raped them. The average person, if you ask them, they
would tell you that's a violent crime. It's not a
vinent crime anymore. If someone walked through my house right
(03:42):
now and started firing at AK forty seven, but they
missed me, by the grace of God, you and I
believe that's a vinent crime. The average sane, rational person
thinks that's a violent crime. Under the new law, it's
non violent. It's still a felony, but non violet. And
what it did was it created a lever to release hundreds,
tens of thousands of individuals into the street. And where
(04:03):
did most of them come? To? Skid row? So now
I was watching the justice system fail again. Imagine being
in what's tall of recovery zone called skid row, where
there's one hundred and eight programs designed to help people
with the narrative issues, but there's a drug dealer standing
right outside the door or inside the door. In some
of these low income supportive housing units, they're worse than
(04:27):
being on the street. And the reason why that is
is a lot of the people who got housed in
skid row still old drug debts to the local loan shark,
and the loan shark finds out that the order drug dealer,
and the loan shark and drug dealer finds out they're
still in there and says, hey, guess what, you got
to sell this drugs for me in this hotel. Help
me turn this place out, or if you won't do it,
(04:48):
you have to get out of your own room and
let me move in. So now you've got somebody who's
house who's now back on the street. Because the criminal
element is able to run wild and rampant once again.
Women are being victimized at a high rate that tents
are up. We can't take him down. The most tragic
thing I ever saw was I was parked and these
tents were up, and it was about twelve noon, and
(05:10):
I didn't hear anything. Everything was quiet. I went to
the station, came to work the next day, and I
saw a report at twelve noon at fifth in San Pedro,
where I was park there was a woman who was
savagely raped by three males. I was parked there. But
even though that's a failure, I look back on the
successes and the one thing they can't take away from
(05:31):
me is the relationship that I built with the people
on top of housing them. During the period where we
had it safe, I created several programs off the cuffs.
One was called a Ladies Night, and Ladies Night was
birth in my heart. In nineteen ninety nine, I was
an undercover investigator in skid Row and talk about seeing
the real underbelly of skid Row. I couldn't believe it.
(05:52):
A I couldn't believe they didn't recognize me as big
as my arms were at the time. But be you know,
it was just seeing drug program operate, raiders participating in
the drug drug trade and allowing drug dealers into the
facility and handing out drug. I couldn't believe what I
was seeing. It really broke my heart when I saw
these people, I felt had no hope. Uh So, working
(06:14):
under cover, I remember I had to go arrest sex workers.
There were two sex workers I was looking for and
I could never get them. I could never put on
the right costume right. So finally I thought I had
the right one. I was dressed as a preacher. I
have a little collar on, you know. I'm driving through
the streets and I see the girl. I'm like, I'm
gonna get her this time. And I pull up next
her and say, hey girl, I'm gonna lay hands on you. Right.
(06:36):
She looks at me and says, what do you need,
big daddy? Lips split, open, eyes swollen shut, skirt torn,
and she's walking looking for another customer. And my heart
just broke and I broke my cover. I said, look,
it's me. I'm trying to get you, but I'm not
gonna arrest you. Please tell me who did this to you.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And you're listening to Dion Joseph sharing with you his
story of his time spent un skid row. And for
a time, boy, that death rate on skid row went down,
and then came rules and rags and policies that made
it just more difficult for someone like Dion and cops
across this country, they get harder for them to do
(07:14):
their jobs and keep us safe, including the most vulnerable
among us. When we come back, more of Dion Joseph's
story here on our American Stories. Here at our American Stories,
we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith,
(07:36):
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
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
(07:56):
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American stories in Dion Joseph's story. He's a law
enforcement consultant, author, and active senior lead officer in the
(08:18):
downtown Los Angeles skid Road community. Let's continue with Dion.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
There were two sex workers I was looking for, and
I could never get them. I could never put on
the right costume right. So finally I thought I had
the right one. I was dressed as a preacher. I
have a little collar on, you know. I pulled up
next her and say, hey, Giryl, I'm gonna lay hands
on you right lips, split, open, eyes swollen, shut, skirt torn.
My heart just broke, and I broke my cover. I said, look,
(08:46):
it's me. I'm trying to get you, but I'm not
gonna arrest you. Please tell me who did this to you.
She said, I got to live here. You either arrest
me or let me go. And I had to let
her go, and the same guy that violated her violated
several other women in the skid Royal. I couldn't do
anything about it, bign I didn't have the resources. But
in two thousand and eight we were having the same problems.
(09:06):
The ladies were telling me about it in skid Row.
They felt I was the only officer they could talk to.
So I said, you know what, let me talk to
you about your rights. Because what they were hearing from pimps,
from activists, from their johns, is you go to the police,
the police are going to arrest you because you're a
drug add I'll tell the police you were a drug
addict and they're going to arrest you too. Or I
know you have a warrant, so I'll tell you if
(09:27):
you have a warrant, the police are going to arrest you.
None of these things were true. So I established some
really great relationships with the SRO and they allowed me
to use one of their community centers and the hardest
skid Row called the James Jim Wood center, and I
created Ladies' Night and I rolled out the red carpet
for these lady and I think I set out about
fifty cheers, but I only expected about fifteen ladies because
usually people on skid row don't show up for things.
(09:51):
But a grace of God, about one hundred and seventy
five homeless women came to the first Lady's Night, and
I treated them just as if they lived in West
la Hey. I had a da there, I had a
city council woman there. I had all these people there
that normally they wouldn't expect to come talk to them.
But the whole thing was, I don't care if you're
in a pipe, on parole, a prostitute, or off swinging
(10:11):
from a pole or undocumented. If somebody hurt you, it
is my job to serve you. And my brother and
I also taught them some self defense as well, and
not enough to kick my own butt, but just enough
to add seconds to their life should they get assaulted
in the street. And you should have seen the impact
it had. I had made connections for life with those
ladies sharing their stories of abuse. And I just sat
(10:33):
there and listened all night long to these ladies they
felt listen to, they felt heart. Now here was the
wonderful gift from that. Two years later, we had a serial,
a taxi cap Cereal rapist driving through skid row, picking
up women and just doing things I won't even mention
on this program to these women. And three of the
(10:54):
women that he sexually assaulted went to Ladies' Night, my
first Lady's night. Guess who they can the police and
we put that guy away for the rest of his life.
But the funny story side note behind that was when
they were brought into court to testify, they wouldn't get
on the stand, and they kept asking them, why you
guys won't testify. We're not going to get on the
(11:14):
stand unless the Angel shows up. So I'm at home,
sitting in my Superman draws, drinking on the S Strawberry smoothie,
trying to endraw my day off, and I get a
call from the DA's office, Joseph, They're not going to
get on the stand if you don't come. So I'm like,
but I'm in my Superman draws. I'm trying to relax.
I'm watching Marie. I want to know who the baby
(11:35):
daddy is, And I said, you know, what this is
too important. So I suited up, went down there, and
when I walked into the waiting room, all three of
the victims collapsed into my arms and they went and
testified and put that man away for the rest of
his life. Hopefully. That was one incredible moment that no
(11:57):
one could take away from me, and to this day
I still have a great connection with the women of
skied Row. During that same time I work with the missions,
the shelters, I had to learn a hard lesson about
once again, once again, about judgments and stereotypes. I always
thought the missions were scams. I thought that they were
there to basically corral the homeless, feed them soup kitchens,
(12:18):
and then drive off a Mercedes bends and not change
the thing. I always felt the missions were a problem.
They were the problem. They were the main source of
the problem. As low as the homeless were going there,
you know, there was always going to be problems. And
I'll never forget when I first became a senior lead officer,
my captain says to me, Officer Joseph, you're doing great
out there. You're making a lot of arrest, but that's
not what I hired you to do. You have to
(12:40):
build relationships with the community. And I was like, what
do you mean. I want you to go meet with
the director of the Union Rescue Mission. His name is
Andy Bales, and I was like, oh God, the mission.
So I went. I showed up. I saw him. I
shook his hand and said, Hey, I'm Officer Joseph. Captain
told me to meet you. Here's my business card, and
nice talking to you. And as I'm walking away, he says, hey,
your captain said I had you for my thirty minutes.
(13:01):
Oh man, I got crying to fight and everything. So
he says, come walk with me. So we're walking through
the first level and I've been in there many times
making arrest and I'm seeing people arrested before. Hey, that
guy is smoking crack right there. Oh arrested that he
got a warm for his arrest right there. I'm like,
I'm judging right, But he must have sensed it because
he was taking me to the second, third, and fourth floor.
(13:23):
Every floor got better, and by the time I got
to the fifth floor, I saw individuals who I arrested.
I arrested them. And when I arrested them a year
or two years ago, I said to myself, not because
I was mean spirited. This person's going to die just
based on the trajectory of life that they were on,
and these people were cleaning, sober and running their program.
(13:45):
I'll never forget. One lady approached me and says, you're
a RoboCop. I remember you, And I'm like, I don't
remember you, beautiful lady, And she goes, well, you probably
don't remember me. Back then, I had no teeth. Remember
I told you I wanted your family to catch AIDS
and die.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Oh oh you.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I forgave you for that a long time ago, right,
And she says, Officer Joseph, I'm doing well in here.
I'm doing good. I hope you're proud of me, I said, baby,
I am. She says, but let me tell you the truth.
If you guys don't deal with these dope dealers and
long stars out here, I don't know how long we're
going to last in here. That gave me pause. It
made me realize that not only did they need the
(14:22):
shelters and the programs, they also needed the police. And
I made a whole shift, mindset shift, and I became
a guardian for the drug programs for the shelters, and
I did everything I could to make sure I kept
drug dealers and gang members. And when I noticed that
while I was doing it, people were graduating from drug
programs at a higher rate. The missions were reporting less guns,
(14:43):
less drugs. Oh. They let me come in there and
watch videos and all the time inspire on drug dealers.
It was just a wonderful thing that God was just
blessing me. But one of those beautiful things they did
was they allowed me to engage in a program called
the Jest Like You Program. I created this program after
being invited to the mission to talked to the kids.
And I went there, and the mistake I made was
(15:03):
I patronized the kids. I walked in there and I
did the old song and dance. Hey, I'm a police officer,
I'm your friend. Hey, little billy, what do you want
to be when you grow up? A football player? Hey Johnny,
what do you want to be when you grew up
a fireman? No? I did the old song and dance right,
the old soft shoot. And then there was a twelve
year old girl and she was looking eastbound down at
(15:25):
the street, and I was kind of insulted. The party
was over here, right, I said, Hey, lady, the party's
over here. A young lady, what do you want to
be when you grow up? And she looked at me,
this beautiful chocolate black girl, and she says, I'm probably
going to be like these people having on sex on
the sidewalk if you don't get me and my family
out of here, shut me down. I got emotional. I
(15:45):
couldn't continue. I walked out and let my partners handle
the rest. I went to the station. I'm sitting at
my desk praying to God and said, what can I do?
What can I do? Who can I put in these
front of these kids who were just like them? D
nam ann name. The idea popped on my head, that's
just like your program was born in. I found individuals
who could be mentors to these kids who they didn't
grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth. They
(16:07):
were in foster care, they were homeless, they were abused,
and somehow, some way they turned their life around. I
brought a judge, I brought a lawyer. I brought a
former actor. I brought a guy who I found in
a trash band covered in scabies, okay, and I put
a poem in his jailhouse bag and he read the
(16:29):
poem and somehow it inspired him to change his life
and he went on to manage hotels in the area.
I couldn't believe it. It's amazing, you know. That's why
I can't stop, you know, it's just like I'm always
looking for the miracle.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And a terrific job on the editing, producing, and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler and a special thanks to
Dion Joseph. He's a law enforcement consultant, author, an active
senior lead officer in the downtown Los Angeles area of
the notorious Skid Road community and doing what he can
to make life better for the people there and safer.
(17:05):
And I can just picture that lady's night and his
skepticism running it, because not your typical ladies' night. But
yet he treated these women as if they were women
of high society, like they were from Beverly Hills, treating
them with the same dignity and respect. They had rights.
He wanted to let them know, and they had someone
who cared to talk to. He was there to listen
(17:28):
and serve, and what a beautiful thing. And all those
women showed up and then ultimately we're able to talk
to him about their fears and the monsters who were
preying on them, The story of Dion Joseph, and the
story of so many of the people who serve us
in uniform, doing good, seeing things that most of us
(17:49):
well don't want to see and couldn't handle if we
did his story, their story. Here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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