Fentanyl, Cartels, and Gangs: The New Face of Drug Abuse

In this episode, host Juette sits down with gang expert and law enforcement officer Kevin Young for an in-depth conversation about gang activity, immigration, and their impact on local communities. Kevin recounts his path from the police academy to working in narcotics and gang units, offering insight into shifting drug trends—especially the surge in fentanyl—and the influence of cartels. The discussion explores the contrasts between gang dynamics in Lynchburg and Roanoke, the significance of understanding gang culture, and the obstacles faced by those in law enforcement. Kevin underscores the critical role of proactive community involvement and inter-agency collaboration in effectively tackling these pressing challenges.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm really excited to have Kevin Young on the show.
He is probably one of the greatest gang experts, definitely
in this area, probably on the East Coast, And it's
really cool. With everything that's happening with immigration and everything
about people coming in and out of this country and
the involvement of gangs, I thought it would be really
good for you to come in and kind of give
everybody around here heads up on what's going on in

(00:30):
our communities and even on a national levels.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Excited to be here. Yeah, Well, it's always fun. It's
always fun, So everybody should be interesting. Everybody buckle up
and get ready for the interesting. So talk about a
little bit about yourself, like how you got to Bedford
County and what you've experienced.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
So I grew up. I was born in Norfolk, but
didn't stay there very long. I came to we moved
to run Over when I was like three or four,
grew up in Oak ended up in Amhers County because
we have my mom's families from that from that area,

(01:09):
and then so lived there for several years. Ended up
going to the Police Academy in Salem, Cardinal Criminal Justice
Academy with the town of Bedford Police Department and then
eventually emerged over to the Sheriff's office after five or
six years.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
At the time, you saw us and you're like, I
want to be them. Yeah, blue is not my color.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's not brown. Well I'm back in blue now.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
So talk a little bit about your academy experience. What
was the academy Like, how old were you when you
went to the academy.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I was twenty one, twenty one years old when I
went to the academy. It was it was a bit
of a culture shock, you know. I see I see
I see kids going through the academy now and I'm like, man,
I'm not sure they would have made it when I
went through. You know, it was it was a lot

(02:00):
different back then. You know, you had to we had
to wear a uniform. We inspection every morning before the
class started. We had to stand in formation and the
instructors came out and inspected everybody's uniforms, make sure you
had your your your edge dressing on your shoes and
Irish penance under your pockets and all that sort of stuff,

(02:21):
clean shaven.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
And they didn't they didn't yell at you, not at all. No,
they were very kind. Did they courteous? Yeah, made you
feel welcome in here. Yeah, it's like a home. Okay, yep,
it was just just like a home. But you know,
peat eat every day that we peeted in the afternoon.
I think we were.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
The first class that ever went through that academy that
did not have fun Fridays.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well, yeah, what are fun Friday?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, fun Friday was, uh, you went outside and you
played like a sport or something during petee time as
opposed to having to run information police recess. Yeah, it
was police Academy recess. But you know, if everybody did
well throughout the week and there was no issues and
everybody kept up in their run and we didn't have

(03:09):
to run in circles waiting on people and stuff like that,
then uh you got reward. Oh yeah, yeah. Just they
would make you. We ned to go go in somebody's
yard and do flutter kicks until everybody caught up. Or
oh there's always one, Yeah, there's always there's always that guy.
So sometimes I was that guy. I'll be honest with you, but.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I don't want to do I'm gonna run a little slower.
That's gonna run a little slower, all right, so you
get done with the academy.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
What year was that? Uh?

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Four okay, And so you're you get back from the academy,
you go to the town. Well it was the city
of Bedford, it was, And what was that like? Police
in a small town.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
So the sergeant that I worked for back then, we
worked eight hour shifts are terrible. You worked seven days
of four to midnight, then you were off for one day.
Then he worked seven days of eight am to four pm,
the off for one day. I always look it out
for your best at and then you worked seven days
of midnight to eight am, and then you were off
for five But I needed to sleep the first three

(04:07):
because you just worked, you know, twenty.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Days or whatever. So and my body is not used
to this.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah. Uh So I wrote of my field training officer
for the four to midnight shift and then the eight
to four shift, and then the first midnight shift. Sergeant
came in the officer's room through me set of keys
and said, you're not going to figure this out until
you're on your own. Let you go. So that was, uh,
that was my My field training was fourteen days, okay.

(04:32):
And you're like, here, the city is yours. Yeah, ninety
percent of the jobs. Gut instinct is what what he
told me. He said, unless you do something illegal, unethical,
or immoral, then it can be fixed. O figure it out.
So that' said. Okay, so and he fixes that first year. No,
I was. I was pretty good that first year. Okay,
all right.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
And then so talk about a little bit to your
transition to the sheriff's office. Bed For's not a great
big town, so it's uh, then you get thrown into
what like were eleven hundred square miles after that?

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, Edford, you know, Bedford's six Back then it was
six point three or something like that square miles. We
had like twenty four officers maybe. So, Yeah, I worked
patrol at the at the PD, and then went into investigations.
I did criminal and narcotic investigations there. Worked a lot

(05:22):
with the Sheriff's office then and eventually went over to
the to the county. And yeah, I went from six
point three or whatever to almost eight hundreds.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Clear, when you were in town, is that when you
you were on the tag team because it was a
joint now it was not on the tack team. You
didn't get it to the tack team until you went.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah it was it was no longer join at that pointkay, Yeah,
so what it was before me? And then yeah, somebody's
feelings got hurt and then it never never happens in
this and then so then it was just a county
and then we brought the town back in at a
later date.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
All Right, we'll talk a little bit about your transition
to the county. You worked a rove maybe a year
or two before you went into.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
The road for two years, so it was a deputy
for five months, got promoted to corporal. So I got
hired in May. I want to say my august I
was corporal in patrol on the shifts's second second command
on the on the patrol shift. Was corporal for probably

(06:24):
a year, and then uh went into narcotics investigations as
an investigator back.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
So on a shift, you were supervisor. You were like
the second supervisor. You had a serget.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, it was pretty much the best. It was the
best gig I ever had because you were in charge,
but not really unless the sergeant was off, you know,
so you're pretty much just backing up people. Not many
reports to write, you know. It was the best gig
probably I ever had. Mone well, I don't know. The
one with DEA was not bad. That was not bad either. Yeah,
there was no report writing there either.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
So all right, so you go, you go into narcotics investigation.
What's next up for you with the narcotics talk a
little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, So my time as a narcotics investigator, you know,
we it was kind of a cool time to be
in narcotics because the stage is right before when I
went into narcotics, like nobody nobody really ever talked outside
of your unit, right, like, there's all this secret squirrel

(07:22):
stuff going on, and nobody, nobody in our agency knew
what we were doing for sure, and then there was
certainly nobody in another agency that would know what we
were doing. Even though we're purchasing narcotics from there's people
that may be their sources too. And then me and
I really felt like there was a corner that was turned,

(07:42):
especially when I became a supervisor in narcotics, where one
of the supervisors for the State Police for their drug
and drug section came up and we would just be
sitting in an interview and I would just type a
name question mark, and that he would type a name
question mark and we know he's in run Oak or
wherever doing his interview and I'm here doing my interview

(08:05):
or whatever. And then it kind of clicked between us
at least that like, you know, we're not gonna crime
doesn't stop a jurisdictional boundary, so why should we?

Speaker 1 (08:14):
And you're both looking probably some similar, if not the
same people.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, yeah, so you can't house everything well, this is
only happening here because that's not accurate. And if you
think that way, then that's not going to it's not helpful.
It's not going to be fruitful.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Okay, all right, So any cases to stand out to
you as far as narcotics cases or that you worked
or it was, was that the mess time or what
was the main thing y'all dealt with?

Speaker 2 (08:39):
But the beginning it was was it was pills. It
was everything was pills, and then it transitioned. That was
the infamous pain train. It was.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes, we won't talk about that.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
It was a bigger pain for us. It was a lot. Yeah,
we had transition from pills to to heroin and then
you know, then it went to shake and bake meth
where we were doing you know, a couple of meth
labs a month, which talk about paying an ass. I mean,
you know, you get a meth lab at two o'clock

(09:15):
in an afternoon, like we're gonna be there till two
o'clock in the morning. So then that kind of trickled
out because you know, they're only making a gram or
so at a time. And then they found out that
they got the effort. It's a lot of effort, a
lot of danger for not a lot of yield. You know,
it's just even meth math works out, doesn't it. Yeah,

(09:35):
it does, okay, Yeah, but so yeah, then it transitioned
into were the first like large quantity of myth I
think we ever and I said large quantity it's really
not now, but it was going to quarter out of
myth or something. It was like twelve hundred bucks, right,
you know, and uh, I was like, man, that's gonna
be a lot of myth because I'd only seen really

(09:55):
only shake and bake myth occasionally pop somebody that had
some crystal or something then, but nothing to this quantity.
And then of course now you're you know, we went
to that to you know, eventually we got we did
a case where we got three kilos of math and
that's a lot of myth. So, especially for this part,
keep you, keep you awake for a while, right, you
can do it. You can sort a lot of screws

(10:16):
with three kilos.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
No doubt about it. So meth it goes into myth.
Where did you were you in narcotics when the fentanyl
came in or you yeah, yeah, okay, talk about that
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
So finnel first started coming in and back then the
heroin was sold a little bit differently, and I'm sure
you can still get it this way. But you'd get
like tenth fo grand bags and the bags would have
stamps on them, and the stamps would be you know,
I would say Frank Lucas or that'd be a smiley

(10:49):
face or collar greens all yeah, whatever. Right, So it
either said something or had a picture of some of
some creature or something on it. And that's how we
tracked it. You could track it from here to Patterson,
New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
There's no heroin coming out of New Jersey.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
There there there is, yeah, there is. Yeah. We worked
We worked a cool, cool heroin case where we actually
followed a guy from here to Patterson, New Jersey and
back and stopped him here in Chandlersburg with this load
of heroin. So how much was that? Uh? Sixty four bricks?

(11:27):
I believe it was.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
What that sixty it's almost three hundred three three or
four hundred hits something like that.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah it was. Yeah. I mean a brick is is
fifty bags? So three thousand?

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, yeah, so a couple of knuckle draggers trying to Yeah,
math I got my shoes one, so I don't think
it counts.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Only have nine fingers. It is your award winning finger.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
It's amazing, got it?

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Oh well too? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
All right, so really cool, math Case. I know at
some point while I was working with you, you ended up
in Ronoke with a drug diversion with dea.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
What was that like? Yeah? It was, Uh, it was interesting.
You know, you can't it's almost virtually impossible to charge
a medical doctor with almost anything.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Nah, absolutely, you.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Know, not that they're all crooked or anything like that.
I'm not saying that by any stretch, but there there was.
They put things in place now where you can't just
go to a family clinician and receive oxy cotone or
you know whatever, but you have to go to a
pain management facility or whatever. Nowadays. But back then, you know,
you could walk in and yeah, my back's been hurt

(12:47):
in the last couple of days, and you know, oh yeah,
I can feel that where it's kind of bulging right
there at your disc or you get three hundred and
sixty pain pills, and then that turns into heroin, because
where I was going with the heroin was that, you know,
an a thirty milligram ox coda on back in the
early two and you know, twenty twelve was thirty bucks

(13:08):
dollar milligram back of Heroin's you know, ten bucks or
whatever it was going for at the time, so you know,
it's it's cheaper. And then they started cutting you know,
back then, they were cutting it with cinnamon and garlic
and whatever crap they could final land around that they
could cut it with. And then they realized that you
could cut it with fentanyl and it would be potent,

(13:30):
and then people were getting hot shots and they were
dying because they thought it was still cut with garlic
or whatever, and it used the same amount that they
used yesterday. But this is a Frank Lucas bag and
yesterday it was a yellow smiley face bag, and it's
two different bags coming from two different people, cut by
two different things, and you didn't know what was in
it and you took it and you died because you're
not used to that same quantity. So it's uh and

(13:52):
that was that was really I think the the turning
point on when we started sharing information. You know it
is you know, me and this one of the supervisor
for the state police with text back like hey, did
you guys have anybody any overdoses yesterday from Frank Lucas
bags m H and uh. So that was kind of
how we could track where that where the dope is

(14:12):
coming from? Was Was it that way?

Speaker 1 (14:15):
So with it with fentanyl the way it is now
and all the drugs, I feel like the cartails have
done a really good job of transitioning everybody to synthetic narcotics.
They're easier to get across the border and they don't
have to depend on any type of growing season to
get them in. Yeah, talk a little bit about that,
like what you would you experience with that as far
as the meth, and I think everything now is pretty

(14:35):
much meth in fentanyl.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah it is. I mean, you know, those guys have
it down to a science, whether it's cocaine or whether
it's fentanyl or mouth Like you said, it's uh, it's
pretty much down to a science. You know, a lot
of the lot of the methodology that they're using is,
you know, your best place to hide an eggs in

(14:57):
an egg crate, right, So it's kind of like working undercover.
You're not really you know a lot of people aren't
actually undercover, but they grow a big beard and their
hair out long a lot. A lot of times you
stand out more than you fit in, and you're really
your your job is to fit in at that point,
to look like you belong where you are. And you know,

(15:18):
the cartels you use that same method you know there
it's not like they're driving Porsches and stuff like that
down the road delivering dove. They're driving Buicks and you know,
Chevy Corsicas and things like that. Because it fits in.
They fit in a lot better.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
So while we're talking about cartels, now that they've been
designated terrorism organization or well I don't even know the
wording that you're more familiar with the wording on that,
but they're a terrorist organization.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, talk a little bit about.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Your experience with gangs, because I mean, you are a
gang specialists in Virginia. Yeah, and just talking about that
process to be a gang specialist, and then let's go
through just the different gangs that are operational in this area. Yeah,
so you had a huge case, and we'll talk about
that in a little bit.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah. So I got designated as a I went through
a course with the Virginia Gang Investigators Association, it was
probably in two thousand and seven maybe, and became certified
as a gang specialist within the state and eventually got

(16:23):
sworn in as a gang expert in in court and
things of that nature based off of training, experience and
things of that nature. But I also teach gangs at
the Academy. Is still instructor lead instructor for for street
gangs at the Academy here in Lynchburg. And I've been
doing that for a long time. But I always kind

(16:43):
of had an interest in it, you know, like I
always listened to gangster rap when I was a kid.
I was a little skater punk, you know, so I
always listened to stuff like that and it kind of
just drew me to that aspect once I got into
law enforcement. And and I'll tell this, any cop that's
listening if you're not listening to gangster rap and you're

(17:03):
a cop, then you were wrong because a lot of
especially nowadays, rap has a lot of information in it.
It's not it's not NWA's fuck the police, right, you know.
It's where they're just giving their opinion on something. These

(17:23):
a lot of these guys, and they have been indicted
on rap lyrics and things of that nature based off
of things that they've admitted to in songs and things
of that nature. So it's uh, but not only that,
it's also giving you information on wording that they're using
and slaying and terminology and things of that nature. So
if you're in an interview and somebody says something, you

(17:45):
already have familiarity on what that word means or what
that phrase stands for. If you're listening to jail calls
and two people are talking back and forth, you're going
to be able to pick up on something that somebody
else may not pick up on based off of stuff
like that. So I just wanted to spit that out
a little bit. No, I mean, I think it's great information.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
I think sometimes we work in a little bubble and
we don't think about, like what the other person's communicating
and if you can't speak their language, you're.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Out of luck.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
And I know several times I've called you in and said, hey,
I have no idea what they're talking about. I know
one case in particular, they're flashing money on social media
at a local local school.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, and it's it was.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
It was really interesting to me that that gang is
marking their territory just like if they sprayed it. Yeah,
they're tagging like this is ours. Yeah, so continual on,
like it's very interesting the gang sto.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah. So so got got certified and you know, there
there was there was there were gang taggings you know,
around through the county and stuff like that, but it
was it wasn't like it was a major happening, uh
thing that was going on throughout the throughout the jurisdiction.

(18:58):
But I know that, you know, one time I got
I got brought up Sheriff Brown and well Sheriff Miller.
Captain Miller back then took me to the Board of
Supervisors meeting one night where I was explaining to them
we were trying to get some funding for some additional things.
And you know, back then in the in the mid
two thousand and tens. We were looking at some of

(19:23):
the other jurisdictions around us and how and again I
said this earlier, but you know, crime does not stop
at jurisdictional boundaries, and there's a lot of a lot
of spillover. No exactly, And Lynchburg definitely has a lot
of gangs, a lot of gang activity as this roun Oak.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
So this is what I found interesting when we talked
about it before. What is the difference between the gangs
and Lynchburg and the gangs, because I think everybody sees
these ebbs and flows are like, well, Danville has a
whole lot of homicide, sure, Lynchburg Lynchburg seems to be
on a run of gang related shooting, sure, and then
Ronoke seems to have relative calm. I shouldn't put that

(20:01):
out there, but yeah, I mean at this point they
and it's it's weird how that works. Yeah, try to
explain as best you can of just like how local
gangs and then spin offs and all that work, and
how that relates to the violence people seeing their communities.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah. So, so the gangs in Lynchburg are far more
organized than the ones in a ronok cary. And by
what I mean what I mean by that is, uh,
they're they have more national affiliation, so things with bloods, crips, gangs, Disciples,

(20:37):
fulk Nation, things like that, and the gangs in Ronoak
are not. They don't have nearly the connections, more neighborhood gangs.
And so how Lynchburg got started with the national affiliation?
You know there were gangs, you know, ten years ago
there was a gang called, you know, Floyd Street Soldiers,

(21:00):
and you know kind of how it got spun up was,
you know, one of them goes to prison and then
it gets checked when it gets to the door, not
by the guards but by the inmates. You know, what
do you claim? I claim Floyd Street? Like what the
fuck is Floyd Street? You know, so you can't be
in here and be Floyd Street. So now you've got
to claim something. So then he had to make claim
and then it all got back to the to the

(21:20):
gang and Lynchburg and now they're nationally affiliated. So it's
so what gangs are operational in Lynchburg that you know of? Yeah,
I mean h h RA, cripsh Folk Nation, is there
gangster disciples, the Bloods, several different blood sets, several different
crip sets.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, I think it's safe to say a lot of
the unsolved homicides that they're dealing with in Lynchburger gang related, Yeah,
for sure.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
I mean it's not just it's not just yeah, I mean,
and a lot of it is over A lot of
it is over turf, and a lot of their turf
is all in the same area. You know, it's not
a fight over very common Yeah, and it's not like,
you know, there may be one or two of we're
in a in a nice neighborhood or whatever, at least
that's where Mama's I address is, you know, but the
majority of them are are you know, they hang out

(22:11):
in one area of the city or you know a
you know, not just one street or one neighborhood necessarily,
but one section of the of the city geograph and yeah,
and you know, it has a lot of people uh
in there that have either grown up in a gang,

(22:33):
their family was gang members, you know, things of that nature.
And then you know, as people grow up and they
evolve and they turn into two gang members themselves. So
it's just been kind of a snowball effect.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Kind of grown over the years. Yeah, as they grow up.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, eventually that will happen in Rounoak. And you know,
Runnock's population, of course as much as larger than Lynchburg's population,
and Runoak definitely has its areas of violence, even downtown.
You know, my wife looks at me all the time.
She's like, Oh, we're gonna go downtown for dinner. I'm like, no,
I don't think we are. You know, I have nothing

(23:09):
down there for me. So you know, there's there's some
there's some nice areas downtown. There's lots of nice restaurants downtown.
I'm not saying I don't go downtown or anything like that,
but there's a lot of places downtown. You don't you
never know where you're going to end up and who
you're going to be in front of.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Well, you don't know who's going to show up.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah, I mean that's what I meant. And yeah, two
people that don't get along and all of a sudden
bullets are starts praying. Then you know, what are you
going to do?

Speaker 1 (23:33):
So their accuracy is not great, it's not I mean,
if you're getting paid by the bullet, yeah, very efficient.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
It's not efficient at all, right, And that's how a
lot of a lot of victims become victims is you know,
two people, it's not like they're out, you know, trying
to find an innocent victim to take it just happens
the wrong.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, yep, Well talk all right, so from and we'll
go back to this. I think it's really important and
I wanted devoted a lot of the time. You were
probably the only person in this area that has ever
worked a violent homicide, gang related homicide with a international gang,
which is MS thirteen. I know everybody's talking about MS thirteen.

(24:16):
We'll talk about that a little bit. Yeah, well, we'll
talk about that a little bit later because we found
out at lunch you have an inside scoop. We'll give
it out quietly, but just talk about your case. Raymond
Wood was a young kid in Lynchburg and walk through
what happened. Like you were out, you were you were
just going about your day and you get a phone
call and would it.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Was actually a sleep you know, working you know, being
you know the team leader on tag team too and
narcotics supervisor of a narcotics unit typically didn't go home early, right,
But I went home early one day and I went
to sleep at like eight thirty and got a phone

(24:57):
call and h the guy the other line was a
lot of the command staff and he said, uh, hey,
uh you asleep. I said yeah. He said, get up,
start walking around and needed to think a little bit.
I said, okay, So I started walking around. I'm like,
all right, what's up. He's like, hey, you know, we've
got a kid over here that I was laying on

(25:19):
the road and he's got a lot of a lot
of bodily injury and the things that he was describing
to me. I was like, man, that sounds like MS
thirteen to me. And he's like, uh, he said, where
are they from. I said, well, MS thirteen started in
the United States, but they're primarily a Salvadoran street gang.

(25:41):
And he said, well, we've got a kid stopped and
he's from El Salvador. I said, all right, I'll be
there in a few minutes. So yeah, that's what the
FBI I would say, that's a clue. So got over
there to the crime scene first and uh, you know,
looked looked over, you know, kind of what the situation

(26:02):
was and what happened with the kid, and went back
to the PD and or to the sheriff's office and
before we started talking to this, to this kid that
was in there, I was trying to figure out what
kind of what happened and how we got here, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, well, you've got a young kid from Lynchburg
in Bedford County.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah. Well, at that point, we didn't know who he was.
We didn't even know how old he was to know
where he was from. We had no he had no
identification on him or anything like that. We had no
idea who he was at all.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
So that I guess you started like missing persons, just
trying to identify your victim.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, pretty much. I mean we reached out to all
the surrounding jurisdictions, like, hey, if you get a phone
call in the morning, somebody's missing or whatever, and luckily
that worked out because that's what happened. But but I
always tell this to everybody, you know. So what we
ended up figuring out kind of what happened was there

(26:58):
was a a kid that was involved in MS thirteen
but had not really rosen to a rank of where
he can actually partake in violent crimes and things of
that nature. Right, So there's different ranks. The rank structure
is a little different than most other gangs with MS

(27:18):
and so they had you know, scooped up this guy
and brought him to this back road and they made
the driver drive up to the top of the hill
and they made a certain amount of time and then
come back. And when it came back, he saw the

(27:38):
kid sitting in the or laying in the road. There
was a car parked right behind him. And so this
is at night. This was at night, yea. I was
like ten thirty at night by this point. And so
he just floored it and went on by. And the
lady was on the phone with NAOL one. She thought
that the kid had been hit by a car as
he was walking or something like that on the left,
and she says like, hey, there's a black on there's

(28:00):
roll by me driving a highway to speed and had
Marylynd tags on it. Guy gets down to the bottom
of the road, turns left on two twenty one, and
we talked about how big Bedford County was, and I
want to say it was four guys working that night.
The kid pulls out in front of deputy. I always
tell everybody, I'm like, that was that was God. Otherwise

(28:22):
we would have never figured this out. No, you just
had a body, and we would have had a body
in the middle of the road and it still would
have been opened unsolved case. We would have never, never
ever figured this out. Then the next morning, so obviously
the other guys had ran off, and the next morning
they had they had kind of held up in a
barn somewhere over the night and started raining it eventually,

(28:44):
and the farmer came in to get something out of
the barn the next morning early, you know, and found
the guys sitting up there in the barn and gave
him their phone, so he used the phone. So they
called the guy that was here local and came to
pick them up. But he was driving a hond to
Del Saul, which was a two seater, and there was
four of them, so he had to make a couple
of trips. So he came, picked up two of them,

(29:06):
dropped them off down the road, went back to pick
up the other two, and the uh they ended up leaving.
The farmer ends up calling on one one saying like, hey,
there's something not right here, something's going on with this,
and the dells August at the bottom of the hill
turns out onto twenty one, pulls out in front of
the cop definitely, Yeah, And I was still at work,

(29:29):
So this is six o'clock or.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Six hard trying to put pieces together.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
All night because the kid that we had in custody
was not saying anything, and so we were pretty much
waiting for ICE at that point, and we had no identification,
We had no idea who he was, that sort of thing.
So we're waiting on ICE to come in to help
us with with that part of it. So we ended

(29:54):
up getting them stop as a short pursuit ANDed like
right at Cottontown Road, and got them in custody. So
how many did you get in custody? First? Three? And
then did you well four technically yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Then so one at first and three more. How did
you find the last two?

Speaker 2 (30:13):
A lot of a lot of work.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
And that's that's where you ended up going to other states.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah, So we worked very We worked a lot in
Prince George County, Maryland, and in Long Island, New York.
And I always tell everybody, you know, the kind of
the fruits of this case. We're not only were we
able to arrest you know MS THR team members based

(30:41):
off a homicide that occurred here that we actually obtained
information on but also that based off of the phone
dumps that we got from the people that we arrested,
passing that information on to d A and FBI in
Prince George County as well as Prince George County PD
hides OPD, and then to Long Island, New York with

(31:04):
the FBI up there as well, we were able to
help them arrest the program leader for the East Coast
for MS thirteen and his name is Reaper, you can
look him up. And myself and the Commerce Attorney went
up there for the press conference when they when they
made the area.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
So they arrested a guy that how many people you
think you would have underneath them like MS thirteen.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Again, hundreds, hundreds, if not thousands.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
A little Bedford County gets like a major target for
the whole East Coast yep Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, And that's the cool part of working cases like that.
And uh, that's why I always tell everybody, like do
as much as you can in law enforcement, Like don't
just be a ticket writer. I mean, it's fine if
that's what you want to do, but like expand to
yourself a little bit and see what kind of what
you can actually get out of this. You know, look
what's past the traffic stop, right, you know, and yeah

(31:55):
I was speeding sixty eight and fifty five? But what else?
What else is going on at the end of the Yeah? Right,
So those are the types of things the.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
MS thirteen, based on your investigation, is a very organized group.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Very structured. And how do they make most of their money? Extortion? Okay,
you can see, you know, you go to places that
are highly populated with MS thirteen members. You can see
them going into you know, privately owned businesses and receiving

(32:27):
cash from them, sending it through Western Union like.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
The or like Chicago mobs type of things. Yeah, talk
about Like so obviously that's very different for Bedford County.
Like you have a major case, it ends up in
Bedford County. That's pretty significant. So talk about what what
does it look like for you when you go into
an area that is controlled by MS thirteen, Like.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
What the experience was, Yeah, what was the experience? Yeah?
It was, I mean, honestly, it was culture shock because
you know, we don't we don't see that sort of thing,
not even you know, I've worked a lot of cases
with a lot of people in run Oaklan and Lynchburg,
and you know some fairly large, large cities, but.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
You've never seen one controlled completely by a criminals.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Not almost not almost completely. No, I mean, it is,
it's it's mean, it was a culture shock. It was.
It was a lot different than than anything I had
ever seen.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
And so I guess like for me, and I think
people in general, they it's so far removed from them.
I would say most people in Beffer County, some of
them will remember it, but I'd say, like most people
don't realize, like when they're listening to stuff on the
news and what's happening in Nashley, just really how that
actually comes home to a small area like Bedford County.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, I mean again, I mean the spellover is there.
You're gonna have spellover, You're going to have you know,
how some of these members ended up here was because
they were wanted on homicides in Maryland and then the
gang shipped them here and.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
So they so these guys are not like coming in
to do work. They're coming in they're already they're already
in the area. Yeah, already under the surface. Sure, you
just don't see them, yep. And then they just all
of a sudden they decide they're going to be violent,
and this is what happened.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, And most of most of the violence is geared
from some sort of disrespect. And again it's not like
they're just waiting for somebody to walk down the road
that they can you know, hit with a machete or whatever.
It's it's usually geared towards some sort of disrespect on
their side. Everything in gag culture is respect and disrespect.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
So I think one of the things that we try
to cover as much as we can on this show
in particular, is how does the local population prepare itself
for Like, I think it's really easy to go, hey,
MS thirteen's a problem in Bedford County right after a homicide.
But it goes away. It's not it doesn't go away.
It's still underneath the surface. They're still here, they're still violent,

(34:49):
And I think it's I think it's interesting like the
conversations people have on TV and stuff, and you've got
a sitting was it a congressman or senator that goes
over there and takes up for.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
A gang member?

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Talk about what you know about the Garcia guy that
got sent I think everybody wants to say, well, you
know Trump is pushing this guy.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
This is unfair.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
You know he's a good family man, all this other stuff,
based on your experience as a gang specialist and your
inside information, what is he.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
He's involved in MS thirteen? Uh? The other people in
the vehicle minus one were all identified as MS thirteen members.
The clothing he had on was indicative of MS thirteen.
The other members would not have allowed him to wear
those clothing items had he not been a part of
MS thirteen. So quick question.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
So if he was not MS thirteen and he was
wearing MS thirteen clothing inside a vehicle with other members,
they would have taken that as disrespect. Correct, And what
would have happened to him if he would in MS
thirteen and was wearing the colors.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
He would have been at least violently assaulted, if not killed.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
But he's one of them, and I think that's the
other thing. And we talked to and we don't have
to go into all the details. But like from my standpoint,
when you work criminal cases, you have four different people.
All of them are going to tell the story that
works best for them. It's where their information intersects is
where the truth is. And I think the truth in
this is one hundred percent. This dude has all the

(36:24):
makings of it correct, all the nodes, like what he's wearing,
who he's with, activities, is involved in one of them,
I believe one of them. They're actually trafficking humans correct
that he was stopped on. So my question is what
is the other way. The other way is human sources correct,
and human sources are saying one hundred percent he is
in MS thirteen.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
And they let you know, just you know, the looking
at the entire picture, they let one of the guys
go that they could not identify as an MSR team member,
whether that was through uh personal information or through any
kind of identifying insignia, that he was not part of
MS thirteen, that they could not identify him as MS

(37:05):
thirteen or as a gang member here in the United States,
and they let him walk. So you know, it's all
only circled around this this one individual. And like I said,
the things that they wear and the things that they
do in the areas that they control is done for
a reason and a purpose. And if you're doing that

(37:27):
sort of thing and know about that sort of thing,
and you're in that area, then you you probably just
messed up.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yeah, so it's it's almost like a status symbol for
somebody that's like wealthy, they'll buy a Jaguar or a
car like that, the same thing, except you're not going
to other than your car maybe getting stolen. Sure, But
if you're they're wearing gang clothing hanging out in areas
that gangs frequent and they aren't part of that gang,
they're going to get beat in.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Or beat out, yeah really quick.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah, it's not it's not like they don't they That
is to me one of the things that never does
make sense. Yeah, the the level of violence that these
dudes commit for these well you wore wrong, you wore
this clothing, you showed disrespect. It's almost like children, Yeah,
with machetes.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah so, and a lot of times in minus the
minus ms thirteen graffiti or tattoos, you know, like like
tagger graffiti on trains and stuff like that. You know,
it's awesome, you know, downtown round Oak, like there's the
whole sides of buildings that are done in spray paint.
Is amazing. You know, they have that kind of talent
and you know, always compare like you know that gang

(38:35):
graffiti is like you know, letting your six year old
loose with a crayon. Yeah, you know you can tell
the difference, Yeah, and and and what you're looking at.
But going you make it a really good point a
few minutes ago about the people forget about things and
whether that's in relation to gang stuff that's going on

(39:00):
or violence. I mean, look at all of the school shootings.
Take school shootings for example, school shooting happens, or a
mass shooting event occurs, and it's the hot topic for
four or five days, and then it disappears just long
enough to get people signed up for training, and then
it goes away, and then it's gone, and then it's

(39:22):
not a problem anymore until it becomes somebody else's problem,
and then it's a hot topic again for four or
five more days.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
The how do we how do we in law enforce
I know we talked about this a little bit lunch,
but like, how how do we in law enforcement do
a better job explaining, like there is a violent component
of society. We can either interdict that violence at a
place of our choosing or I don't believe that violent
activity is going to just disappear at all. Like they

(39:50):
are violent, That's what they do, and they are also
they are looking for prey. They pray on the week
and if law enforcement can't ta used to get weak,
I feel like we have a lot of officers that
are in harm's way.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Realistically.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
I remember when I came into this occupation, there were
some people that established the law and we didn't deal
with a lot of the stuff that people deal with
today because they knew better.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, and there was order.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
And I feel like right now, like I don't know
if the public is I think the public wants it.
I just think leadership has to do a better job
of saying, like, this is where we're at.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Well. I think one of the problems is with that
aspect of this. The public is aware of what law
enforcement has done or is doing or involved in because
it's broadcasted on social media and the news and whatever else.
A gang, you know, there was a shooting a run
up earlier today, all right, I saw it on Facebook,

(40:48):
but I didn't see it anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
So like, were just not right, legacy media just not
reporting what are we're reporting?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And when you know? And may they're waiting for details
and things like that. But without being said, I've never
been involved in any case that's ever gone on the
news and then media being like I watch it later
and be like, yep, that's what happened. Like it's never
never been that way, you know, because we're not gonna
if it's an ongoing investigation, we're not telling the media
the entire thing. We're telling them, this is what happened.

(41:18):
This is all I can say because it's an ongoing investigation,
and then they put their spin on it and then
it's spun up in the media and whatever else. But
when you look at what society knows, it goes back
to the sheep, sheep dog wolf situation, right like, yeah,
like my hat, like you're either going to be a
lion and chasing a gazelle or you can be a

(41:42):
sheep and lie there and die, like what are you
going to do? So and I'm not saying this is
gonna happen to everybody, but you know everybody. It seems
like a large portion of citizens have Ostrich syndrome with
their heads in the sand, right, and they don't they
choose to believe that things like this doesn't doesn't happen,
doesn't exist, And you know that's where you know where

(42:06):
people like us got into law enforcement was because law
enforcement should have a capacity for violence, and but not
to cause violence without it being met, you know, using
violence only as a source for to stop you.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
I mean, the book is you got sheep, dogs, wolves
and sheep, and the sheep dog is scary because he
looks just like a wolf, but he will never injure
the sheep. And I think that's the difference is I
think that that there are a lot of sheep out there,
but I think leadership is not doing a very good
job of telling the sheep like this is what is

(42:50):
out there, Like you were just living on a barrow
of time at this point, like they were at that
realistically with China and Russian all these other countries and
with these games, you know, people want to piss them
own about what Trump is doing, like kicking people out
of the country. You've got a sitting senator going overseas, Yeah,
going overseas and taking up for them, who in their

(43:12):
right mind thinks like, hey, I want to align myself
with somebody that chops nocent people.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Up to death. And that's you know, I think that
that is a that's part of it where people people
unless something happens to somebody that it that it matters
to impacts, then there's no need for change. Once something

(43:38):
happens to somebody or somebody's family that can actually cause change,
then that's when change occurs. And like I've I've kind
of seen that aspect of it, you know, where you know,
an elected officials son had you know, injured his mother

(44:02):
and killed himself or something like that, and then all
of a sudden, it was all right, we got to
change what we're doing with mental health, you know, And
so like that was the hot topic for the time being,
and there was change that came about with that. But
before then, you know, as law enforcement, we're screaming mental health,
mental health, mental health, mental health. There's all this challenge
that we have in front of us. There's no need,

(44:23):
there's no help for anything. And then on top of that,
there's no help for anybody with like drug addiction, where
I've had people call me and say, keV, can you
meet me at the hospital? And I go to the
hospital and meet him, and I walk inside with him
and said, hey, this guy's a drug addict and he
relapsed last night and he called me today because he
doesn't want to go down this road. Anymore. What can
we do for him? Sorry, there's nothing that we can

(44:45):
do for you. And if you're not looking for help,
if you get arrested, then you get a drug court
and then you get help because you have to have help,
because they're going to force you to get the help
because that's where you are in court. And so like
there's help for people that don't want it, but there's
no help for people that do want it. So it's
it's insane.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
I remember getting out with a girl that still had
a needle in her arm, and I took her to
Lynchborough General. I was like, y'all need to help her,
and I told her to call me when she got
out of rehab. She called me later that night and
they and told me, well, they have a bed opening
up for me in a week. I was like, she's
not gonna make it.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
She's not gonna make it.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
She's addicted to she's shooting up in a parking lot
of a restaurant. She's not gonna make it through the week,
much less one more day. Like she is at the
lowest point of her life and there's nothing new to
help her.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, And it's not about like scaring the citizens into
believing things that are going on. It's about education and
educating them on certain things. So you know, it's not
like I have a plan for you know, how this
would work or you know whatever else. But that's the
only reason I invited you here to give me a plan.

(45:55):
I don't have a plan. But but you know, like
it's like the definition of insanity, right, keep trying the
same thing over and over again expecting a different results.
It's never gonna it's not gonna happen, right. It's like
Kat Williams say, you keep trying ship and try and ship,
try and ship, try and ship ain't gonna work, right, Like,
like you have to you have to change your entire

(46:18):
view on it. And then the change like if this,
if the method that we're using right now is not working, okay,
like let's regroup on this and figure out a different method,
you know. And it's like it's like having a drug
house where there's there's no there's no hierarchy here. There's
just a bunch of drug drug users that may be

(46:38):
sharing drugs amongst these themselves. And you know, this guy
today is gonna collect these nine people's money and they're
gonna go to run oak and by quarter around some
meth and bring it back. They're all gonna smoke it.
And then tomorrow you're gonna get the money and you're
gonna go to run oak and bring it back. You're
Gonnamoody has to steal to pay for it. True, yeah,
besides that fact, but like, what are you gonna like

(47:00):
what is the goal here? Like you have to figure
out one, Like, all right, we've got a pile of
people using dope in a house. How are we going
to stop this from occurring? Like come up with a
game plan on how you're going to Yeah, let's right,
so their so right all the way, So figure out
how you're going to get to that source. So then
you figure out that, then it makes an impact. Of course,
the guy is going to be replaced tomorrow. I get it,

(47:22):
totally understand that. But at least you've taken them out
for today because now you may not be able to
go buy a dope from that guy. Right, So you know,
you have to figure out a strategy in order to
move forward. And if you don't have a strategy to
move forward, then you're just doing the definition of insanity.
You're doing the same thing over and over again. Back
to education.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
One thing that I think is the most frightening as
a parent is how much recruiting Lynchburg does Lynchburg gangs.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Do in the school system.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yeah, it is absolutely insane and a lot of the
lot of the violence as kids juveniles. Yeah, so what
can you tell parents, like, Hey, this is what you
need to pay attention to, This isn't what you need
to look at. These are the things that are important
for you as a parent to keep your kid out
of that type of a situation. And then on top
of that, how do people keep themselves safe and what

(48:13):
to look out for to keep it out of those
violent situations themselves.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
So as far as parents go, a lot of it
is just awareness on who your kid is and who
their friends are, and you know who they're hanging out with,
what time of day they're hanging out, where they're hanging out,
you know that sort of thing. And unfortunately, there's a
lot that you there's a lot that's going to happen

(48:39):
out of school that or while they're hanging out or
whatever that you can't control, right, and.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
You can't control, but if you're aware of it.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
But it's about being it's about being aware of where
your kids are. And you know, there used to be
the commercial used to come on TV when we're kids,
you know, do you know it's nine o'clock? Do you
know where your kids are? Right? You know? That was
the last time we they put that commercial on there,
you know, but that was that was you know, back
in the nineties where.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
You knew they're well, you knew they were in the
neighborhood on a bike.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, yeah, I came home when my dad whistled, you know,
like so but yeah, I mean, but there was all
these little subtle reminders and now we're doing subtle reminders
for locking up your car at night because kids are
going through neighborhoods, lifting up door handles, rummaging through cars
and stealing your stuff. But there's there's not a lot
of reminder for where your kids who really with And

(49:34):
I'm not saying keeping them on lockdown. You know, you
don't want to make them resentful, but at the same time,
because then they're really gonna cause problems. But be aware
of where they are, you know, like we have life
three sixty. My daughter was in a car the other
day going eighty five miles an hour down eighty one,
Like I got an alert while I was mowing the
grass saying there's police lights and your daughter you know,

(49:57):
it wasn't real police lights, but saying that she was
driving eighty five miles an iron. She wasn't driving, but
her friend was. But it alerted me. Like get used
things like that, like if you if you have an iPhone,
it doesn't cost anything, get freaking life three sixty.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Figure out where your kid is and is most from
what your experiences. Though most of the stuff now the
gangs do. They're very blatant about it, and it's all
on social media.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Correct. A lot of it is on social media, and
that's that's social media is probably the primary I mean,
so there's so much social media now, you know, and
kind I would I mean I would use it when
I was in dope and like go on Snapchat and
take a picture of my service weapon and some dope
and someday down on Snapchat and my fake account. You know,
you get hit up all like ah, fire, you know whatever,

(50:40):
and they don't know what. No that would know, Okay,
so but but yeah, you know, like I mean, Snapchat, Instagram,
all that stuff is especially as a parent, like you
should definitely be monitoring what they're putting on there, what
the songs they're putting on there. Are are not saying

(51:00):
that they're all bad. I'm not saying that I don't
listen to them. I'm just saying that they pay attention
to what they're saying because and then pay attention to
like clothing, you know, I mean clothing is like I progressed,
if your.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Kid suddenly becomes a Bulls fan.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Yeah, I mean, well and aren't. So take the Chicago
Bulls for example. I'm not saying that everybody of the
Chicago Bulls fan is a gang member. I'm a fan
because of Michael Jordan. So let's talking about Michael Jordan's
So yeah, it was years ago. So you get out
with a couple of guys, you know, and a couple
of them are wearing Chicago Bulls stuff. Who's your favorite
Bulls player? Oh Michael Jordan, Oh Michael Jordan. What who else?

(51:39):
Oh Scottie Pippen, Oh, Scottie Pippen. Yeah, you got anybody
that's playing like right now, that's that you're a fan of.
They probably can't answer because they don't know. They just
the history. They do, just know the history, right, so
they know the most popular players, you know. So, but
that's that's what the way they're going to answer if
they can't answer you. It's like my kids coming upstairs
wearing a Sublime shirt and be like, name three songs
before you can wear that shirt school. You know, like

(52:02):
if you can't name three songs, then go change until
you learn them. Right. So, like I see all these
kids all the time we're in Nirvana, DMX or whatever
shirts and like name three songs if you can't wear it,
So do the same thing with basketball or Texas Rangers,
you know, so take go back to the Bulls. You know,
there's a couple of different gangs that would that would

(52:22):
that could potentially wear Chicago Bulls outfits. Right, The Bloods
colors are blue and are red and black. Michael Jordan,
the number was twenty three two plus three is five.
Five is the there's five rules to be in a
blood So like are they go by the number five?
So the there's lots of different mentality that goes inside

(52:43):
of that, and then they'll switch and wear something else right, right,
you know, certain gangs are wearing like Texas Rangers hats
like go to run oak and ask a kid and
run oak, Like, what's your favorite player on Texas Rangers?
Why Texas Rangers?

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Trey Okay? So like h Tray. So they're wearing the
Texas because it's got a big T on the front
of it. So, but yeah, a lot of sports, a
lot of sports teams are utilized for you know, georgeown
Hoyas is one hover hover over on your ass slobs,
you know, so like so like you know you how

(53:23):
do you know what the Georgetown get out of here? Like,
I mean, that's my question, is is it?

Speaker 1 (53:28):
It seems like you pretty much have to have your
hand on the pulse all along.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yeah, because it changes the sin is just like anything
like in prison, Like people are gonna sneak things in
a certain way until they get caught and then they
have to change it up, right, and like there's all
this you know, gang graffiti is this or the gang
alphabet is this? Until they figure it out and then
once they figure it out, now we're going to change
it to this.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
What can so what can law enforcement do? I feel
like what you're describing is what you know, like what
we've talked about before. As far as we react, we
react to the school shootings, we react to violent incidents,
how do we become proactive.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
So that that is where leadership comes into play. Where
you have leadership that comes up with active strategies in
order to prevent things from occurring as opposed to responding
to things that have already occurred.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Then what do we do with the general public to
prepare them for Hey, you're probably gonna see more law enforcement,
but you're also and there's probably a good chances you're
going to see a video of a police officer going
hands on with somebody and it's probably not gonna look,
it's probably not gonna make your week hard happy.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Well, there's there's several things. One I'm a huge fan of,
like the Citizens Police Academy, all right, And I feel like,
if your agency is not doing this that most of
most do, but if your agency is not doing one,
then you definitely should. It's beneficial because when the classes

(54:58):
like I was teaching and Citizens Police Academy, like it
was the same class that I was teaching at the Academy, right,
And I always tell people like, hey, look, there's going
to be cussing in here, There's going to be videos
in here that you're going to see that it's not
going to make you feel comfortable. There's going to be
language used that you're not going to feel comfortable with.
I have to tell like academy students that stuff now,

(55:19):
you know, like my first screen is a big experental
advisory explicit lyrics thing like you're going to be offended.
I'm not doing this to offend you, but you may
be offended because of this may be if you may
you know, I'm not trying to but you know that
experience people going through and we've had like repeats like
coming back through because I thought it was so well

(55:40):
put together. The problem is the people coming back through
police scattermy Citizens of Police Academy. But like you know,
there's typically like twelve people or something like that room
should be packed, and I get like people have lives
and it's a pain they ask to like get up

(56:01):
and go do something at six o'clock in the evening
and things like that. You know, like I've got six kids,
I've got baseball and softball and basketball and soccer like
every freaking day, right, But like you have to make
what's important important, just like a police department or sheriff's office,
has to make what's important important and also outside of

(56:21):
Citizens Police Academy, you know, there should be something that
the agency can do, whether it's a weekly basis, bi
weekly basis, whatever, giving a report on what has happened.
And I know people can go and look it up
online or you know, see what they want, but they

(56:44):
won't write like it's taking that initial step like that's
what they're not going to do. They're not going to
take the extra step needed to do something outside of
what their normal day to day is unless it's something
that had some sort of effect on them. So and

(57:06):
a lot of people don't know how to research things,
like they're going to go to the court's website to
look up something and then they can't figure out how
to be because it's not a it's not an easy
process going on too. The Virginia courts then trying to
figure out what court all right, now I'm in the county,
but what court wasn't in you know, they don't know
the differences and things like that. But doing you know,

(57:28):
having a bi weekly video of the someone on the
command staff giving you know, a weekly report and posting
it on Facebook. This is these are the things that
we dealt with that could stand out for uh, for
you as a citizen in this area, for you to
be aware of or for or Hey, we're hosting a

(57:49):
four hour or a two hour training block on X subject. Right,
you know, please come and join us. We'll have pizza
or something. You know, I don't know. I mean people
come in for you know, I'll do anything for pizza
and beer. So you know, so there's uh stop so

(58:10):
but you know what I mean, Like, you have to
make it worth their while right to make them pay
attention to stuff. Right, But if you, as a leader,
are not making that extra step in order to make
your citizens aware of what's occurring or what the potential
is based off of information that you have knowledge of,

(58:32):
then I would say you're probably wrong because those citizens
that live in that area deserve to know exactly what
there is and so they don't pretend like their town
is Mayberry when it's not. But they only know what
they know.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Yeah. I look at it, and I think about from
my standpoint when I look at how different people look
at things and how like in communities, how things are, well,
I perceive it to be this.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
I think one of the.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Funny things it's amusing to me, but I have a
sick sense of humor sometimes, but it is always amusing
to me when a violent incident happens in somebody's neighborhood
and the first thing they say is like, we never
thought it would happen here. Well, it is like it
is eventually going to hit somebody's home. You know, it
might not be yours today, but at some point it
is going to hit you. Because like, there are a

(59:21):
whole lot of people that came on over across the
border illegally. Sure they paid a lot of money to
get here to a violent, criminal, terrorist organization. So the
math is there. Start paying attention. And I really wish
that we and our occupation would do a better job
of telling the general public, Hey, we're sorry that this

(59:46):
is not palatable to you.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
But the other option is anarchy.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
You look at many Minneapolis and you know they let's
defund the police.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
How did that work out? They just put general citizens
on their internal affairs board. So when you get a complaint, now,
as a Minneapolis police officer, you go before your internal
affairs investigation to people that have never worked in law
enforcement or any kind of public service. They're just general citizens.

(01:00:17):
That are now employed as internal affairs, Like how are
they going to fairly? Like, we don't do that for
medical doctors when they get complaints. We don't do that
for attorneys that get filed, you know, bar complaints, Like
you go before the bar of attorneys, you know what
I'm saying. So, like there's no like, you can't do

(01:00:37):
that to people.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
So and people wonder why law enforcement is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Yeah, so that and like, don't get it twisted, Like
there's a lot of people that are in this country
that should not be in this country, that are perfectly
wonderful people that I have zero that will never cause
anybody any harm or problem. So it's not about that.
It is about the people that are here that are
going to cause problems and violence. And you know, with

(01:01:06):
gang culture anymore, it used to be that they were
just fighting over drugged her if and that was it. Well,
now you have human trafficking involved, and where you have
you have drug dealers and gang banger bangers keeping girls
in hotels room just feeding them dope. And and while they're.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Yeah, nobody ever addresses that. Nobody else. They'll arrest the
prostitute because that's the easiest. Yeah, they won't look at
the fact of like, hey, there is a whole organization
supporting there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah, they're just feeding her, feeding her heroin, sitting in there,
she's doing her dope and and whatever, and they're then
they're paying paying guys coming in there, and the money
is not going to her. No, and like she's just
being trafficked and being moved around, and you know, she'll
be here for a week and a half and then
she's gone somewhere else. Like that is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
That's the reality that doesn't happen. No, Lord, No, Well,
I guess that's a good place to eddit because I
just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I just don't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I just wish there was something without a catastrophic event
like nine to eleven that would wake people up and go, hey,
we understand police reform is necessary, but sometimes you need
we've gone too far to the outside. You have paralyzed
law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yeah, and you can't. You're not going to be a successful,
successful society when you're handicapped the people that are there
to protect the people that choose not to believe that
things happen.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
That's pretty poetic and a good way to end. I
appreciate you coming on both thanks

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Man all right.