WE CHAT WITH LAPD DETECTIVE KNOCKO NOLAN ABOUT HIS CAREER

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to True Detective Stories podcast, the podcast where homicide
detectives shared their most intense cases.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let's begin.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome back everyone. We have a great guest today, Knacko
Nolan kN o Cko. You can find them on Instagram
at Knacko Underscore. It's at k n O c Ko.
He's a former NYPD officer and now he's an LAPD detective.
He has been law enforcement for decades. We're going to
be talking to him about a lot of stuff today.
Before we get started, we're also going to be letting

(00:39):
you know about his podcast, the arm Bar Podcast. It's
called the arm Bar Podcast. Check it out, really cool stuff.
Before we get started, make sure to share, subscribe, and
hit that like button. You know we like it. So
let's not waste any more time and welcome not go
Nolan to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Welcome sir, Thank you sir for having me on. I
really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thank you very much. And you know I forgot the
before the show, but thank you for your service as well.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Oh it's a hunter and a pleasure and I love
it every day.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Hey, you know what, you have an interesting career because
you've worked in the two largest departments in the US.
I mean, I know which who is it? NYPD is
the largest?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Isn't it NYPD? Then Chicago? And then and then la
Oh wow, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Have you worked in Chicago? Did you skip that one?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
No? My gowns from Chicago. That's the closest I've gotten
to it. But what a great bunch of guys. They
were under the gun like everyone else. And what a
great city. And it's a shame to see what they're
going through right now.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, that's tough stuff over there. It's a pretty dangerous place.
Let me ask you this. I always be curious about
how people got into their profession. For officers, it's always
kind of fun because I know when I wanted to
be an officer. You've been in many years ago. It
was usually a TV show that got me started, which
was Adam twelve, And I was like, oh, this is cool.
I like this stuff. And Adam twelve was so different

(01:59):
than what police work is like today, But it was
a really cool show. Did you have any influence from
TV shows?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Was it from TV?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
It was initially a movie called The French Connection by
director Billy Friedkin.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Pretty much it's one of the.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Best crime noir Ish type films about a true story
about you know, plain clothes NYPD narcotics detective. So when
I first saw that, I was like, Wow, that's what
I want to do. I want to be a Plaine
clothes cop, which evidently with my beer you could tell
that's what I'm doing, and working narcotics, working a small unit,
having fun on and off the job, working with a

(02:39):
partner that you love, and you know, the rest will
sort itself out. So that was definitely what got me
open to it. And then and then through the years
I found out like the real reasons why, you know,
Like I didn't have brothers, so I was like searching
for that brotherhood and I always had always kind of
I was like kind of the ring leader whatever little
group we had in the neighborhood. I was, you know,

(03:01):
always kind of organizing, you know, whether it was shenanigans
and hooligans and whatnot. And then later on in policing,
I just always gravitates like a small tribal, little group
of like minded individuals that had fun, but we're doing
the right thing along the way. So yeah, those those
are the deeper meanings for me as I as I
you know, become more in touch with myself and find

(03:24):
out who I am and what the roots are of
that and what led me down this path.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
So fascinating. Yeah, now you're aging us because yeah, that
was the one with Gene Hackman. If I remember correctly,
I think.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider and I got to meet
the directors down the road years ago. Ye had a
book sign and I told him, Hey, you know, just
exact way I told him. He's like, yeah, He's like
you like the one million cop that's told me that.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I thought it was all special, you know, like, hey,
BILLYO ditch. But he's a awesome guy.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
He took my hat off his head put on him
and we talked to a shop and great guy. But yeah, one,
one movie, a TV show and then you're off to
the races.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
So what a phenomenal film.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's interesting. I started a new podcast, Stories of Special
Forces Operators. I've been interviewing a lot of Special Forces
guys and it's been fascinating because they've got the brotherhood too.
That seems to be the resonating theme for them. Seems
to be the Green Beret Molie with John Wayne's Yes,
I remember that one.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and the song from Barry Sadler. Oh yeah,
there's some great material out there. If I could, if
I could recommend one guess you have to snag. There's
a guy named Pete Blabber or Blabor and he's a
Delta Force commander retired and he just came out with
his second leadership based book. And he doesn't do many podcasts,

(04:45):
but when he speaks, you definitely have to listen and
check out his books. I had a rare opportunity to
sit down with him for about an hour or so
for lunch, and unbelievable guy. Unbelievable, good leadership lessons and
ways of thinking. All those guys. People forget that, how
smart those guys. Everyone focuses on the technical aspects of
shooting and the physical attributes and all that, but more importantly,

(05:07):
like those those people that are in those Tier one units,
that mindset is unbelievable and very creative people, and he
is definitely one of them.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
So it's funny I mentioned him.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I did reach out to him on Instagram and all
I got was a message back saying did you get
my email response? It's kind of one of those nightmares
I didn't going No, I didn't get it. Now, is
it yes or no?

Speaker 3 (05:30):
What was that message?

Speaker 2 (05:31):
So I'm waiting now for it.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
We'll talk more about him maybe later.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Absolutely back to you. So you went to NYPD.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
How was that? Because I see every time I think
of NYPD, I have a couple of friends over there.
I always think about Charles Bronson days, Jeth Wish days.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
What years did you work same here? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:52):
I loved, loved Charlie Bronson. World War two, uh, World
War two veteran and yeah, I was there from about
two two thousand and four, so.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, so when it was dropping already on the crime.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, post to you know, Pre nine to eleven
and Post nine to eleven, and then the city change
directions and wins and it just wasn't the city I
was used to anymore. And I kind of, you know,
just outgrew it. So came back to LA in two
thousand and four, so been here since.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
And really when you leave town.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
I came out to LA in ninety six to join
the PD, and then went back home to New York
in two thousand, so I was kind of homesick and
away and then we had my wife at the time
had a sick relative that she had to take care of,
So we kind of solved two things at one time.
So it's looking back now, you know, it's very hard
for people, some people anyway, to leave their hometown and

(06:52):
you kind of miss certain aspects of it and try
to recreate it. And then I learned through the years,
you just you can't recreate something that's something as you
unique as New York City got embraced where you're at,
and you can't can't rely on external things to make
you happy. The happiness has to come from within. So
that's why focus in on I'm not worrying about, you know,

(07:15):
my environments. Although I enjoy it, I'm very grateful for it.
I know the happiness is something I have to produce.
I can't rely on others to produce that. And the
same goes for morale. I mean, right now, at law enforcements,
morales at all time low. Even though in my twenty
five plus years, I've never heard about, Hey, morale's high.
You know, this is great, We're doing awesome. No one's

(07:37):
ever said that law enforcement, So some reason it's just
a negative bunch. Maybe a little bit after nine to eleven,
we even had the in Brooklyn where I worked in
Bushwick at the time, the E three Precinct, even the
purpose on the street, and you know, the junkies and
everyone else, they were root for us, and they were,
you know, shaking our hands, and crime was at an

(07:58):
all time low. And then that, you know, lasted a
few months. So other than that, never heard of moralevi
and high. So I've been a big proponent of you're
responsible for your own morale. It's not the chief of police,
it's not the police commissioner, you know, it's yourself. And
rely on the others close to you know, close to you,
and I try to affect them or out your partner,

(08:19):
your squad, whoever it is, your people in your household,
lift them up. Don't expect them to lift you up.
If they do great, If you've got a great boss
or great chief of police, God bless you, that's very rare.
So don't rely upon those people and just create your
own destiny and manifest it itself by surrounding yourself. I

(08:40):
try to surround they say, like you're the average of
the five closest people around you. So if you surround
yourself with happy, productive, successful people, that's the recipe for.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Success in my book.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
And that's why if we were talking before about jiu
jitsu and my instructors, Header and he Gracie unbelievable positive people.
So I have those guys on my side along with
some other great coaches and mentors.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
In my life.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
And that's that's where I am today and how I
achieved my happiness by just being inspired by them and
motivated by them and leading leading my life through their
examples and lessons, and then me trying to do that
to other people that are around me, you know that
I work with and I live with. So that's that's
where I'm at.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's great advice and not great advice. By the way, folks,
you've got a Gracie jiu Jitsu shirt on if you
haven't seen it, and if you haven't heard of Renner,
it's R E N E R. Definitely check it out.
If you're into jiu jitsu you look at for self defense,
highly recommend those guys. Nacle. You know, you mentioned a
couple of things I wanted to ask you about. You

(09:46):
mentioned about New York and how it changed after nine
to eleven. Do you remember where you were a nine to.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
Eleven Yes, I was on a day off in upstate
New York, visiting relatives up in Catskill Mountains, so as
far from New York.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
City, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, Teddy Atlas and all those guys up in the crew,
I've heard all those stories. And I lived at the
time in Queens, New York, and Forest Hill's home of
the Ramones and many other luminaries. And so my dad
woke me up once the first plane hit, and then

(10:24):
we watched the second one and knew forever our lives
would be changed.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
And then once we you know, made some.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Phone calls and recouped and got ourselves together, like got
to head back down to the city. This is uh,
it's gonna be. There's gonna be a long one. And
little did I know that would pretty much be down
to ground zero for almost a year plus working various
various roles, whether it was on site secured perimeter security

(10:53):
or going down there and digging for you know, survivors
or slash recovery of bodies, and then the Great Kills
Landfill in Staten Island looking for evidence and anything that
identify people, bones, you know, mementos, what have you. So
it ran the gamut and I was really glad that

(11:15):
I made the decision to go back home to be
a part of that. I didn't know that was going
to happen, but if I was still in LA, it
would have. It would have ripped my heart out to
not be a pop a part of that process and
and that recovery. So extremely grateful for.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
That, absolutely, absolutely incredible time. I remember, I think I
was in the gym or in California at the time.
I was working out. I thought it was a diehard movie,
you know, I thought, this is another Diehard this is
this thing. I couldn't believe it was real.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yes, yeah, same.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
And now you see it's interesting or I want to
see if I can ask you a little later about
situational awareness advice, because you are involved in some pretty
heavily populated arrogance and why and obviously LA and so
there's a lot stuff you have to be aware of
as a police officer. Not to say that others don't,
but it's different, right, If you're a police officer in

(12:14):
a more rural area, it's a different ball game. You're
looking for different signs. But in a city like that,
you have to be on your toes. You have a
lot of things coming at you. You don't know who's
who a lot of times.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
And we'll get to that a little bit later.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
I want to go back. We'll kind of do a
timeline here back to LA. Now, where'd you are you working?
First in LA.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
When I first checked in here in LAPD after the
police Academy, I did my approbation and it's called Hollywood Division,
So it's right there.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
In Hollywood, California.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
And at the time, in ninety six ninety seven, it
was kind of a it reminded me of a Times
Square era in New York City where we're talking about
our favorite movies, you know, Death Wish, The Warriors, State
of Race. It felt like that. I mean you'd walk
out the door and you'd see people slinging dope, you know,
right down the street from the police station. And yeah,

(13:06):
it was just pimps, junkies and everything else in between,
all your favorite type of criminals. So it was it
was a great, great place to learn, very interesting. You
can go from you know, just one mile up into
the Hollywood Hills and you know, be at Brad Pitt's
house for an intruder or the be you know, a

(13:26):
couple of blocks around the police station and you know,
responding to you know, your average shootings and assaults and
what have you. And you never knew every time that
radio went off, you didn't know what you go into.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
It was a mixed bag.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
So it was a great variety, great place to get
your beak wet as a rookie and uh and learned.
So I had some really great mentors and uh and
you know cops that I worked with, So it was fabulous.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Did you guys still have that? You guys have the
computers in the nineties, I guess I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, yeah, we had the old m DTS I called him.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
It was like a juke box.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's pretty much the size of a jukebox in the
car and swing around as you're driving, you know, lights
and sirens to different calls or what have you. Uh,
the MDT box.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, the didn't have it because I know when I
would do a couple of some of the other cops
of cards that I've seen have the queue, you know
you have like ten calls waiting or anything like that too.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yes, yeah, it was five calls max, but yeah, reality, yeah,
it was probably about ten. That's you know, you're juggling
all at once. So yeah, it's definitely one of the
busiest parts of the city.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I remember doing it right along years ago down there
and there was the guy had like twenty calls on there.
So which one you take it? What'sir's first one I
can take start from the top, like man that's stressed.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, yeah, ellis always kind of as done. It's it's
it's just kind of a disservice to the city and
the citizens. We've always been undermanned, under resourced, and underfunded.
And that's where I kind of the strong PROGRESSI proactive
tactics came from LA because it was a necessity for

(15:03):
that to put that physical force on the street and
that command presence to keep crime at bay because there
just wasn't enough.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
But there still isn't enough of.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Us to go around, so as opposed to NYPD, where
we solve problems just through throwing mass resources at it.
So I mean, if you had something a crime cluster
in an area, I mean you'd have over time details
just sitting in cars in RVs lights, cleague lights. I mean,

(15:31):
they just have so many resources to throw in it.
In LA, the way they had to solve problems is
by you know, tackling the really minute, granular things that
other departments went dressed, like jaywalking and you know, quality
of life type crimes.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
And we had to do it by.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
You know, being very being upfront with the people on
the street and the criminals to let them know that
we're not going to tolerate the little things because we
don't want the big things to amass.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
So that's uh, I can definitely see that. Yeah, sometimes
you have to do what you have to do to
be able to help that out, to get some of
the message out, you get overwhelmed. An the population of
California has changed a lot. In nineteen fifties it was
eighteen million or something. How were of forty million, so
you have everything has to go up as well.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
You have to increase no, yeah, yeah, and that the
man counts has not gone up very much through the
ADAM twelve days, so now it's it's ridiculous. And the
amount of nine will one calls went Now everyone has
a cell phone from every teenager on up, so that
just increased the call load.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
No, were you it sounds like you were either. I
can't remember now I'm kind of getting confused.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Were you there?

Speaker 1 (16:41):
After that, I had the North Hollywood incident.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
I was there during.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
I wasn't at the North Hollywood incident again a day
off that irish.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Luck oh I was.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
I was in the movies or something, and I came
home and I put on the the see my answering machine,
I had like twenty six messages or something like, what
the hell answering machine? I'm right, I hit the button
and I keep on hearing all these people. Hey, just
check it in or you're right.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I'm like, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (17:06):
I'm like, was there an earthquake?

Speaker 2 (17:07):
See?

Speaker 3 (17:08):
I was in the movies, a bookstore or whatever. You know,
you didn't have cell phones and not aware of what's
going on. And at the time, I lived in Studio City,
which is in very far from North Hollywood, you know,
maybe a couple of miles. And then finally I'm hearing
all this stuff. So I'm like, let me put on
the news and I see the footage of the North
Hollywood shootout. So you had a couple of friends and
apartments that were there. Luckily, luckily I wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
That was insane. I was saying, I changed the whole
protocol for your department. If I remember correctly the way
the guns they carried and everything else.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, definitely ushered in a whole new tactics and equipment
and what had mindset going into certain types of calls
and equipment and load outs, for sure. And then that
kind of rare LAPD goes a lot of departments follow suit,
So change a lot for the law enforcement recrostination.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Absolutely. Yeah, you actually had a story where we're talking
about before the show. It sounded really it was really unique.
It was different. I had to hear this story about
the two individuals and victims and they suffered a horrific crime.
I want to share that a little bit with this.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Sure it's a sad story, but at the end is
a it's a good piece of humanity, life lessons that
people could learn. When I was back in my patrol
days working in Hollywood Division, fast forward the mid two
thousands or so, I did three different tours on Hollywood.
It was like a rookie, then working vice, and then

(18:34):
back as more of a veteran patrol cop. So it
was early morning. I want to say, you know, the
memory phades as time goes on, as the brain gets
diluted with so much information, But I want to say
it was like maybe a Saturday or Sunday, very slow day,
watch shift, not much going on.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
The radio is kind of dead.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Everyone just has their coffee or relaxing, and one of
my buddies gets a call.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
They call.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
It comes out as like an unknown trouble nine to
one one hang up. So someone calls nine one one
and I hang up. We had very scant information and
it happened to be on a street. It was called Stanley,
very nice, posh street. Across the street was where Andrew
Dice Clay lived and it was just at the foot
of the Hollywood Hills, and.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
So you know, it was quiet street.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
So like, no, let's uh, let's go back up our buddies,
you know, we just to say hello. We figured just
your average you know, nine one to hang up, someone
pressed the wrong button or whatever, and we'll go from there.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
So go to hang out.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Little do we know, we all roll up together and
we're approaching the door and posh home, so you can
kind of see through the windows and this door, and
we see someone laying on the back in a suppiant
position and they have I don't want to give out
too much grouesome details, but bodies mutilated ways that I've

(20:01):
never seen and haven't seen since. Uh some think the
movie seven involving a fireplace poker, you know, one of
those deals that you put in a fireplace to manipulate
the wood and that'll give you a picture of what
it was. And the body was mangled and certain parts

(20:22):
were removed from the body, and we're just looking at
it like, wow, this is this is a not your
average ordinary homicide scene. And uh so one of the
guys boots the door, everyone clears, it clears the location,
and now we're thinking, okay, you know, crime scene mode,
what have you? So we start calling in assets and

(20:43):
resources and what have you. So as the day goes on,
I want to say, maybe like four hours in, we
get another nineber one call of a dead body and
just happened to be behind the house, and like wow,
what now, and we go. It was one of the
houses where you could really just just.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Walk across to the yard. We had to go around,
so we had to.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Go around the block and we show up and there's
a little old lady, probably in our eighties or so,
and she's just crestfallen on the stoop and we're like, hey, lady,
what's going on? And she's like, Oh, my boyfriend's in
the house and he's dead, like an eighty year old
lady boyfriend. I'm like, wow, this day is getting stranger
and stranger as we go. And so we opened the

(21:33):
door and it was a hot day, but it was
about thirty degrees hotter, and it felt like a son
It was like one hundred and twenty degrees and there's
all this steam throughout the throughout the house. And I
don't know if you ever see saw the movie Insomnia
with al Pacino, Yeah, with Robin and he has Robin

(21:54):
Williams and he's searching through this part in the forest
and like, Alaska, something is all this smoke and when
have you missed? And he can't see with his hand
in front of him, that's tell what it was in
his house. We're searching, trying to clear it and first
find the body, and I can't see pass my hand,
so we don't know what we're walking into. And as

(22:15):
we're clearing it, we find another body of elderly man
and his body too was just completely mangled and parts missing.
Just the most gruesome, one of the most gruesome things
you'll I'll ever see in my life. And so we

(22:36):
do that, we come back, I have to clearing it, like, wow,
we have another a second crime scene. And long story short,
the detectives that worked the case, it was assigned to
robbery Homicide divisions and great guys that the unit that
deals with in LA of all the high profile cases.

(22:59):
So you're ojsim in case Robert Blake, that type of thing.
So evidently with two grewsome crime scenes. They like, this
is something more than your average you know, gang binding,
your type of murder. So they roll out to the
scene investigate, and it turned out to be the perpetrator
once they caught him and debriefed him. He was a

(23:22):
former marine and he was spun out on methamphetamine speed
gack and he was going door to door knocking on
people's doors. So what people usually answered the door, you know,
in the middle of the morning or whatever. You know,
elderly people don't know, Hey, don't answer the door for
a stranger. Poor fellow opens the door and Kevin punches

(23:45):
him in the face. And anyone that knows it's in
combat sports, if you bare knuckle, if you punch somebody
in their mouth or whatever, and it's especially the teeth.
You're gonna probably hurt yourself really bad. And immediately his
hands swelled up, broke his hand, and he became so
enraged at the old man. He thought it was because

(24:05):
the old man's teeth were rotten, and then that's how
he spread the infection onto his hand. This is all
going on his mind in milliseconds. He was at yeah,
just a complete yeah, psychotic phase. So he became enraged
and just obliterated his body. Uh, did crazy things, eating organs.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
What have you?

Speaker 3 (24:27):
And uh and then yeah and uh he uh decapitated him. Uh,
took off, got a belt and put it through his
mouth and put it over his shoulder like a gunny
sack and hopped over the fence to the first crime
scene where we got the nine one call. And once

(24:50):
he jumped over the fence, he got into that house
and the person was the male another male adult who
was at first victim, was on the phone with We
found out an airline company. So back in you know,
the two thousands before people made everything online, did the
old school wag calling calling the airlines. And he's on

(25:10):
the phone with the airline company and he sees this
maniac running through his house with a head on his
round the belt. So he drops the phone and he's screaming,
and so Kevin Lee Graft starts, you know, murdering him.
So the person on the phone, the operator at the airlines,
hearing us going on, and then she calls her nine

(25:31):
one one, which was like back in Jajo or something,
so to get you know, someone's nine one one call
transferred to LA.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
I mean that takes some time ago.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, technology wasn't up to speed and phones and everything.
That's completely different. So by the time we showed up,
Kevin Leegrath already obliterated his body and took his took
the Decedents car and then boogied and he ended getting
I think he ended up getting made on prints they

(26:03):
found They found the victim's car, printed it and came
back to Kevin Lee Graff and then they put out
a APB and he ended up getting caught. He was
scaling a fence at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, and they
have really tight security. Obviously, so many nut jobs in Hollywood,
and especially they gravitate towards celebrity stuff. So they're watching

(26:27):
this guy's scale a fence and at the same time,
they had the TV on and they're plastering Kevin Lee
Graft's photo on air what he did, and be on
the lookout, and the guy's like security guys like, wait,
that's the guy that's on TV jumping over the fence.
So they called nine one one, and you know, the
troops respond and take him into custody and what have you. So,

(26:50):
And now to rewind a bit, when we were doing
the canvas of the neighborhood looking for other victims and
witnesses and what have you. Evidence, we going door to
door and we ended up finding out both these individuals
were so highly praised and highly loved and known. In

(27:11):
La A lot of people don't know the neighbors. I
mean it's a rarity. You know, people from all over
all different parts of the world. So it's not like
you grew up on that block. But somehow all the
neighbors knew these guys and loved them. And little backstory
on the elderly gentleman. He had a rough life. He
was a screenwriter back in the day. He did like

(27:34):
Frankenstein and all the avan Costello type movies.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Wow, so prolific guy. And he ended up getting erroneously
rolled up in the.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
McCarthy era of you know, people diving out other people
erroneously as a communist sympathizers and end up he wasn't.
But back then kind of that was like the original
Hollywood cancel culture of kind of what doing here. It's like,
you have a certain view, you can't work in this town,
You're gone. So again history repeats itself. Learn your history.

(28:08):
So he got snagged in that. But his neighbors told
us he was just unbelievable individual. Everyone loved him. And
then the other person, his neighbor who got murdered.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Later on years down the road. I was.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
At a dermatologist in Beverly Hills getting some moles checked
for the first time Irish skin. He was moles everywhere,
cancer in the family, what have you? So I'm talking
to the doctor he asked me what I do and
asking him, you know how he got involved in this
being a dermatologist, really nice guy, and he tells me
he's like, oh, actually I was. I grew had a

(28:48):
really troubled childhood and one of my best friends his
dad was dermatologist doctor as well, and he kind of
mentored me and became a father figure. And then he says, yeah,
but you know, not that long ago he ended up
getting murdered. So I was like, oh, wow, where did
that happen. He told me about oh, in Hollywood, some psychopaths.

(29:11):
So now my brains, I'm like what. And I'm like,
I was there, I saw his body, and I know
exactly what happened. So he proceeds to tell me the
whole story of how he just he paid for his
medical going to medical school. He just showed him the
path and just became you know, became his dad pretty much.

(29:33):
And that was the type of individual this was. And
both of these men's lives were erased and evaporated due
to so and high on drugs.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
That was a maniac.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
So when people say, oh, drugs are a victimless crime,
I say, let me tell you a story about Kevin
Lei Grath. You know, there's victims out there, and there's
plenty of them and it's not pretty. So if that's
where we want to go for as a nation, this
is the things that you got to be prepared for,
and that's what we're seeing in these major cities now.
So just just some lessons there that I've seen through

(30:07):
the years, So you're.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Right, and I had a good humanitarian ending and he
left a legacy that's what.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, led a life of service you know for you
know his community and you know, the highest fashion in sane.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
It's interesting because when you mentioned the the ferocity of
that crime and a couple of things that pop up
normally when I when I do the podcast in forensic
psych it's usually like come across. When I see these
heinous crimes, I usually know it's going to have to
be somebody who's either enraged for whatever reason, and fidelity
can sometimes lead to it, and then they're still usually

(30:45):
on some kind of substance alcohol or something, but usually
you'll have a psychotic episode as well. One of those
two are usually at play for such a violent crimes.
And when I had other homicide detectives or serial killer
detectives on here, it's.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Pretty intense stuff.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Pretty intense stuff, Yeah, especially the method ft. I mean
it's on the streets now. I don't know what they're
cutting it with. But you know, back in the nineties
people were doing some wild stuff, but now it's it's
way more potent and longer lasting than For some reason
in LA I don't know how it is in other cities,
but everyone's getting naked people running through the streets naked,

(31:25):
high on speed. It's like the old PCP days in
the nineties.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
So it's interesting you mentioned because it's something I sometimes
I'll get into discussions with people because they'll say certain
drugs are how would you say natural? It's like, yeah,
it is natural if you get it from the ground
and you chew it up. But most of the time
on the streets it isn't like that. By the time
it gets there, it's already distorted in some way chemically.

(31:51):
The cartels are known for lacing you know this cartaels, know,
marijuana with fetanol and whatever other crap that's on there.
And even if it is go ahead.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, and even if something comes from the grounds, like
the poison hole around us in nature too, that's from
the ground, it's not necessarily good for us. So exactly,
it's a mixed bag. So whether it's organic or man made,
look out.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
No, absolutely, I completely agree. It's a it's a tragic thing.
And that's something other people don't realize too, is and
you've probably experienced this more as a detective. Well maybe
not you, but a lot of detectives have those crime scenes.
That's something that people don't talk about. You know, they
get to see it a lot and order and they
see snippets, right, they see the body. Then the person

(32:38):
walks out of the office, is all fine, they're having
lunch the next day. But that takes a toll. You
see one body after another. That takes a toll on it,
doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
It takes a toll on the community itself of you know,
people that live in that area and lost those people
and our selves included. It taught me I try to
see that, you know, in the bad, I try to
see the good. So like the deeds of that doctor,
that that's what springs me up. And so I undwell
on the negative, but I know one of the guys there,
and or I know all the guys there, but one

(33:08):
in particular. I mean, it had a horrendous effect. And
when we talk about it today, when we get together,
somehow it always comes up that that went right to
the heart and that's going to the grave and not
in a good way. So yeah, the body, even if
you block it out, that the body doesn't forget. It
keeps count and absolutely it's that's that's Yeah, it's tough

(33:31):
stuff all the way into retirement to the grave.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
So yeah, that's tough stuff. Tough stuff. Not go again. Well,
as we get ready to wrap up here in a
few minutes, I wanted to see if you had any
advice for people. The world has changed a lot in
the last five years. It seems to be a lot
more unsafe. But I'm noticing a lot a lot more
brazen crimes on the street now during the day, which

(33:55):
I haven't seen who probably since the nineties, late early
night these late eighties when you see this just in
the middle of the broad daylight, people shooting, people robbing.
In certain parts, it's not the whole American folks, so
I don't want to over generalize, but there are certain
areas that have a lot of the sectivity going on.
What would you recommend people to do to keep safe? Then,
I tips at all.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
To keep safe rely on the instincts within. We have
great survival instincts that have brought us as a species
to this point, but they've.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Been dulled through.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
What we're talking on now, I'm talking through a computer,
but our phones, headphones, what have you?

Speaker 2 (34:36):
I see?

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I just took a walk through after doing yoga at
the beach and taking a walk through my local park.
And I would say probably the majority of the people, even
the senior citizens, had like headphones on. Oh really, so
it seems like yeah, so just the simple things of
just being aware and not tuning out to your surrounding.
It's like one enjoy nature, observe what's going on in

(34:58):
the big cities, a lot of bench interesting things going on,
and even in a park, you know, look at your
surroundings not only to enjoy it, but once you know, second,
it may just help you survive. So you know, listen
to things, watch everyone, you know. You don't have to
be hyper vigilant, but be observant, be interested, and then

(35:19):
rely on your gut. Usually women a lot better at
instinctual they're more in touch without their emotions. As men,
we kind of put those aside and neglect those. So
but we have the strength and the and the brawn
and the violence of actions, who you know, to tackle
those things. And some women are really raised in that culture,

(35:41):
although that is changing, so they fall more prey to.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Type of crime that where they.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
They could be you know, abducted, you know, salted and
have you and raped whereas with my with men it's
more a little different vein, and so you could afford
to tone out a little bit. But I just say,
just rely on your gut instincts. If it doesn't feel good,
probably isn't good. So listen, smell, and just just be,

(36:13):
just be who we are. Just get back to the basics,
you know, walk through neighborhood and just be be present
in every way possible. And then secondarily, like you said,
it's not in every city. You know, crime is that
around every corner too. Turn off the news, I say,
put The good friend of mine says, put the music
up and the news off. It's you have to maintain

(36:34):
that balance of being aware but also being being aware
of everything else that's going on in society.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
It just don't dwell on the negative is. They're definitely
negative things out there, and crime absolutely, but as that's
even in the biggest cities I know I've been in,
it's it's the minority.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
So help one another.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Don't be an observer with the phone when something does
go down, observe, report, and act if possible if it's
safe to do so, and everything else will sort itself out.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Advice.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
I like that balancing act. You're right, because if you
don't keep watching the news, you think it's a homicide
every two minutes outside the door, It's like, it doesn't
work that way. And if you're a criminal mindspan and
think it's a serial killer every two hours down. So no,
absolutely great advice. I guess my last question would be,
I know you're you're an advocate for jiu jitsu, big

(37:30):
fan of it obviously, and this is something I've been
We've talked about with other officers as well. We've always
pushed it. We've had Ashley Cummins on here. I'm not
sure if you're familiar with her MMA fighter as well
as a police officer in California. And have you seen
it benefit you? Do you see it benefit other officers?

(37:51):
You see these videos sometimes and I'm not here to
to Monday Morning Quarterback or anything of that nature, but
some of these officers it's like, Wow, this could have
you could have and if you had the proper training,
this would have been subdued a much quicker in a
much quicker way. Has it helped you a lot?

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah? Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
I was just having this discussion last night at my
dojo with a person that's not in the profession, and
we were discussing the benefits of it. And basically what
you're seeing in the streets is, you know, we're just
average guys, right, we're out in the street. You may
have to, you know, fight with so and I don't know,
maybe a couple of times a year. It's not very

(38:28):
it's not very frequent, even in the roughest of areas.
But every time you do, it's it's it's not the norm.
So what happens when you're not normalized to a situation,
your your intensity increases tentpole, so you're in fear, you're scared,
you start overreacting. And as you're overreacting, as we know
now through science, you know you're a migdala hijack and

(38:50):
you're not prefrontal cortex and using the lizard bring and
so you're not thinking clearly. So you're not going back
to you're not falling back to your training if you
have any good training whatsoever. And this is what you
have all the disastrous results that we see in these videos.
It always existed. It's just now that due to smartphones

(39:10):
and social media, now it's being put out there to
the masses, but it always happened a good bed and worse.
So when you're thrown into a situation at a dojo
doing Brazilian jiu jitsu, whatever you like to do, boxing,
muy thai, wrestling, any of those combat sports are fantastic.
You're fighting all the time. I go four or five
times a week, so rolling with someone that's six foot

(39:34):
five to a female that's five foot nothing and everyone
in between. I'm used to so many different body types.
I'm used to people on top of me. I know
how to breathe, I know how to escape, survive, and
thrive in that environment. It just becomes normal. So if
you're doing something all the time and the combative nature
that's normalized when it's presented to you in a real

(39:56):
life scenario, it's just like what I just did.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
I just did this yesterday. Amount of problem.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
I clinch with the person, you know, I get them
down to the ground, I hold them before I'd be
not scared, but I'm you know, kind of fear, like, wow,
I can't lose his fights pre jiu jitsu, knock on,
I'm swinging for the fences that you know. I grew
up boxing, so I'm throwing blows like crazy. I'm putting
everything out there, and I'm so I'm expending energy. I'm

(40:22):
hurting possibly myself, my fist and the person on the ground.
And the best case scenario is always, you know, to
get compliance, voluntary compliance. If we don't get that, then
we have to go to our our other personal weapons.
So now with jiu jitsu, I know I could just
hold somebody, use body pressure, and then just wait them out.

(40:43):
We call it the one hundred second rule. If I
could hold someone for one hundred seconds and the arms
are tied up, the legs are tied up, more than
likely if they're that training, which most of these guys aren't,
and uh, they're going to expend all their energy in
that first minute or so of just flailing around and
going nuts, and then after that the body just gives up.

(41:04):
So while that's happening, I'm just holding on to him
using body pressure and talking to him calm. This is
what I do with my sparring parts. I'm like, oh,
you got me in a pretty good position. Okay, all right,
So now I just flipped the script. I'm like, hey, buddy,
it's all right. You're gonna be going you're okay, We're
not gonna hurt you. I'm just holding onto him and
talking to the com voice. I'm not screaming because I'm

(41:25):
not scared.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
I'm not excited.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
So I'm able to get a good blood flow through
breathing techniques and I'm using, I'm using, you know how
the right brain, not the lizard brain, preform a cortex,
and then we have a successful outcome. Now I get
him up. He's not scared. I'm not scared, and I
didn't have to rain down blows and beat him up,
and now we have to go to the hospital. Or

(41:47):
if someone's filming and me or it's on body camera
or whatever, this guy's in a bloody pulp like, Okay,
this guy didn't go with the program, but this cop
knew what he was doing and talked him down off
the ledge as he's as he's going through the scenario.
And that's the best case that we have out there
for a non compliant individual. So that's how it's helped

(42:08):
me on the streets. But martial arts in general, it's
way deeper than that. I mean, the graces just through there,
their lifestyle. I've completely changed my diet, way of thinking
my surroundings.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
New community.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
It evolved me in and that's what led me to
know the practitioner and that I've linked up with and
they invited me be a co host on your Arm
Borrow podcast. So it just opens your world up to
a whole bunch of different positive things and it's a
great community. So it's a very lot of layers to
the martial arts community. So can't suggest it enough for people,

(42:49):
especially in my profession and just for anyone. It's great
to keep the neural plasticity of the brain, keep it going.
It's a muscle like anything else. You use it and
lose it. I mean, even if you average person to
street will probably never get into a fight. But it
goes way deeper than just learning how to fight. But
that one day you have to use the fire extinguisher
in your house to put out that fire you have

(43:10):
it within to put out that fire on a street
that someone's getting hurt.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Great advice, Great advice, And you're so right. There's so
many things you hit on that Unfortunately we're running out
of time, but you did that. You hit a lot,
and I really I always look at what's going on now,
and I'm saying you know what, if the government wants
to do something, this is one thing I would advocate for,
is this national budget for every officer in the US
to get trained through jiu jitsu. That's about it. I

(43:38):
think it's one of the best things for them, and
to minimize it's going to minimize a lot of stuff.
It's going to protect the officer's life, the perpetrator's life,
the civilian's life. Everybody's much safer if they get properly trained.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Yeah, the more you learn how to fight, the less
you want to do it because you know the consequences
of it, so that the less I enjoy sparring. For
the last thing I want to do in the street
is roll around with somebody and fight with them. So
if I could, I could protect them as much as
possible from a harm even though they're trying to harm me.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
That that's my mission.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
The police department is a life saving organization. The myth
of us going out there and trying to hurt people
shoot them, that is far from the truth.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
We're here to help.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
So that's the message I want to get across to
people that potentially watching this, that want to join a
fine organization, meet great people, do great things, have fun.
You're not in a cubicle like everything the rest of
the population, or at working from home like a you know,
like a like a hermit. You're out there and seeing

(44:40):
the sights. It's a hard work, but it's very gratifying work.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Awesome stuff. Thank you so much again knockover for being here.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
We truly appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
No, thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate you
and the message that you're putting out and your guests
wide birth so keeping.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Very great work. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
You can find more about at knacko underscore over on Instagram.
And you know what, I don't know his handle over
on Twitter. What is your handle on Twitter?

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Good question. Let me think it's that at Knacko Nolan.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
I want to say that is it's Knacko Nolan. You're
right at Knacko Nolan, k n O c k O
n O l A n on Twitter, just Knacko on Instagram.
Also check out the ar Bar podcast check it out.
A lot of good stuff on there. Thank you again,
a Knacko, Thank you everyone for listening. Make sure to share, subscribe,
hit that I Like button