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[00:00.000 --> 00:03.640]  Warning, the following show contains explicit language.
[00:03.640 --> 00:07.740]  Certain people should not listen to this show, such as children and panty-waist adults who
[00:07.740 --> 00:15.280]  cry like 12-year-old little girls when they hear profanity.
[00:15.280 --> 00:16.280]  Welcome back, my friends.
[00:16.280 --> 00:18.240]  It is a pleasure to have you back with me again today.
[00:18.240 --> 00:20.560]  I'm going to talk about something a little bit unusual.
[00:20.560 --> 00:25.920]  I normally talk about things that are topical, and this is absolutely not.
[00:25.920 --> 00:33.040]  I want to talk about my experience working, uniform, bash gun, on the streets during the
[00:33.040 --> 00:35.080]  1992 Los Angeles riots.
[00:35.080 --> 00:37.840]  Now, let me explain how this came up.
[00:37.840 --> 00:42.680]  Something was on Facebook about it, and I commented that it was an incredible experience
[00:42.680 --> 00:43.680]  for me personally.
[00:43.680 --> 00:52.000]  And incredible doesn't mean good, I mean, obviously, riots are bad, but it was an intriguing
[00:52.000 --> 00:53.000]  experience.
[00:53.000 --> 00:54.000]  How's that?
[00:54.240 --> 00:57.840]  To be on the street during the riots, and a lot of people said, oh, we'd love to hear
[00:57.840 --> 00:58.840]  about that.
[00:58.840 --> 01:02.280]  Well, okay, so here we are.
[01:02.280 --> 01:05.440]  Before I share my personal experiences with you, let's take a little walk down memory
[01:05.440 --> 01:09.740]  lane and remember exactly what the 1992 Los Angeles riots were about.
[01:09.740 --> 01:18.040]  They jumped off just hours after a Simi Valley jury acquitted four officers on charges of
[01:18.040 --> 01:20.560]  assault and use of excessive force.
[01:21.080 --> 01:25.220]  This was all pertaining to Rodney King, and we remember the holiday video that was released
[01:25.220 --> 01:31.600]  on KTLA in Los Angeles and then went nationwide from there and caused a huge brouhaha.
[01:31.600 --> 01:34.780]  By the way, let me just take a moment before I get on and tell you my interpretation of
[01:34.780 --> 01:38.760]  what you saw on that video of Rodney King, what has now been known historically as Rodney
[01:38.760 --> 01:39.760]  King beating.
[01:39.760 --> 01:44.160]  I'm not going to get into the whole thing about what led up to the moment where we see
[01:44.160 --> 01:49.120]  Rodney King on the ground and we see officers striking him repeatedly with a baton, but
[01:49.120 --> 01:53.720]  I will tell you that in my estimation, having worked the street and also in a supervisory
[01:53.720 --> 02:01.740]  role, that the culpable party in that was Sergeant Stacy Kuhn, and here's why.
[02:01.740 --> 02:05.000]  After I share this with you, you can go find this on YouTube or wherever and look at this
[02:05.000 --> 02:06.760]  for yourself.
[02:06.760 --> 02:11.720]  The officers were doing something that's taught in the academy called pain compliance.
[02:11.720 --> 02:15.200]  You want somebody to do something and you're giving them a verbal command and they're not
[02:15.200 --> 02:16.200]  doing it.
[02:16.200 --> 02:19.720]  So you take your baton or whatever means of delivering the pain you happen to have in
[02:19.720 --> 02:21.880]  this case with Rodney King, it was batons.
[02:21.880 --> 02:27.280]  So you take the baton and you strike, strike, strike, and then you issue the command.
[02:27.280 --> 02:31.480]  Now in this case with Rodney King on the ground, the first command was probably roll over onto
[02:31.480 --> 02:34.800]  your stomach and the second command they wanted was put your hands behind your back.
[02:34.800 --> 02:36.400]  That would have been the sequence of events.
[02:36.400 --> 02:38.520]  So let's say he was not on his stomach.
[02:38.520 --> 02:45.200]  So it's strike, strike, strike, get on your stomach, noncompliance, strike, strike, strike,
[02:45.200 --> 02:50.760]  get on your stomach, and the idea there is if they want the pain to stop, they'll comply.
[02:50.760 --> 02:53.000]  That's why it's called pain compliance.
[02:53.000 --> 02:59.680]  Now if you watch the video, or at least let's say what I saw, I saw these officers, one
[02:59.680 --> 03:05.520]  of them, strike, strike, strike, get on your stomach, as an example of a command, and then
[03:05.520 --> 03:08.680]  the next one, strike, strike, strike, get on your stomach, strike, strike, get on your
[03:08.680 --> 03:09.680]  stomach.
[03:09.680 --> 03:16.520]  Pretty soon, the suspect, in this case Rodney King, has no idea what the fuck is going on
[03:16.520 --> 03:21.480]  or what is wanted of him because from his perspective, he's hearing three or four cops
[03:21.480 --> 03:27.360]  screaming at him simultaneously, screaming over one another, and he's being beaten nonstop
[03:27.360 --> 03:30.360]  without a pause to comply.
[03:30.360 --> 03:34.320]  And yeah, Sergeant Coon was standing right there.
[03:34.320 --> 03:39.080]  Had I been standing right there, I would have been like, stop, what the fuck are you doing?
[03:39.160 --> 03:42.120]  Jesus Christ, don't you guys have some professionalism?
[03:42.120 --> 03:47.480]  You designate one, maybe two people, depending on circumstances, to deliver the pain complaints.
[03:47.480 --> 03:48.480]  And that's it.
[03:48.480 --> 03:51.280]  But this free for all, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
[03:51.280 --> 03:52.280]  boom, boom, boom, boom.
[03:52.280 --> 03:54.040]  Where does that stop?
[03:54.040 --> 04:01.340]  It's like you've probably seen this in incident videos before too, where one cop is screaming,
[04:01.340 --> 04:05.280]  show me your hands, and the other cop is screaming, don't move, and the other cop is screaming,
[04:05.280 --> 04:06.280]  get on your knees.
[04:06.280 --> 04:09.200]  What the fuck is the suspect supposed to do, right?
[04:09.200 --> 04:12.260]  So that is exactly the situation I saw with Rodney King.
[04:12.260 --> 04:17.620]  So to me, the sole culpability rests with Coons as a supervisor right there who could
[04:17.620 --> 04:18.620]  have stopped it all.
[04:18.620 --> 04:21.820]  And of course, LAPD's training that's like, okay, so what if there's three or four of
[04:21.820 --> 04:22.820]  you there?
[04:22.820 --> 04:28.260]  How does that work with the pain compliance equation when there's three or four of you?
[04:28.260 --> 04:32.620]  One more little storytelling before I get on to the actual guts of the riot.
[04:32.620 --> 04:36.040]  In the wake of the riot, Tom Bradley, who was the mayor of Los Angeles at the time,
[04:36.040 --> 04:39.240]  he initiated something called the Christopher Commission.
[04:39.240 --> 04:44.040]  And I'm not going to get into the whole Christopher Commission thing, but one of the outcomes
[04:44.040 --> 04:51.440]  from the Christopher Commission is it released a list of the officers who had the most complaints
[04:51.440 --> 04:56.160]  against them for allegations of excess violence, right?
[04:56.160 --> 04:58.960]  Excessive use of force, as it's called in the vernacular.
[04:58.960 --> 05:05.880]  The top five, I don't remember who the first four were, but number five was a good friend
[05:05.880 --> 05:12.280]  that I'd worked with often, and far my senior, I think 14 years my senior, former Navy SEAL
[05:12.280 --> 05:16.420]  on SEAL Team One, we're just going to call him Frank for the sake of this, he's long
[05:16.420 --> 05:17.880]  retired now.
[05:17.880 --> 05:23.400]  And I learned a hell of a lot from Frank, I want to be clear, but I was, my makeup is
[05:23.400 --> 05:26.600]  such that I took those things that were of value from Frank and the things that I looked
[05:26.600 --> 05:28.880]  at and said, what is that?
[05:28.880 --> 05:32.960]  I didn't adopt those into myself, in my way of placing.
[05:33.520 --> 05:36.200]  And Frank and I are still friends to this day, and I do not approve of all the things
[05:36.200 --> 05:37.200]  he did.
[05:37.200 --> 05:39.760]  Let me be very clear about that, there are some very questionable things he did on the
[05:39.760 --> 05:43.000]  street and in his personal life, and we're just going to leave that alone.
[05:43.000 --> 05:47.760]  But here's the funny thing about this, the first four people on the list all quit within
[05:47.760 --> 05:51.280]  a couple months of the list coming out, because they were targeted, right?
[05:51.280 --> 05:54.920]  You're the top four for excessive use of force complaints?
[05:54.920 --> 05:57.960]  Yeah, where are you going in the department, you might as well just retire.
[05:57.960 --> 06:04.320]  But Frank, he soldiered on, and he eventually got an attorney, and through the Los Angeles
[06:04.320 --> 06:11.240]  Police Union, he eventually got a really sweet gig of all places in the training division.
[06:11.240 --> 06:17.200]  Yeah, LAPD, you got to love it.
[06:17.200 --> 06:21.200]  Frank spent another, I don't know, four or five years doing that, and then he retired
[06:21.200 --> 06:23.240]  with I think 32 years on the job?
[06:23.240 --> 06:25.320]  So on to the actual riots.
[06:25.320 --> 06:31.360]  Three days, obviously 24 hours in each day, I think during the entire three days I got
[06:31.360 --> 06:37.600]  maybe seven, eight, or nine hours of sleep on the street almost continuously the whole
[06:37.600 --> 06:38.600]  time.
[06:38.600 --> 06:43.960]  Let me start by saying the experience was surreal.
[06:43.960 --> 06:46.240]  Let me explain what I mean by that.
[06:46.240 --> 06:51.120]  When you're in uniform on the street, you are constantly somebody who attracts attention.
[06:51.120 --> 06:54.720]  You pull up in a black and white, even if it's a civilian colored dual purpose car,
[06:55.120 --> 06:58.120]  you get out, you're in uniform, you've got a partner, you're walking around, you attract
[06:58.120 --> 07:04.680]  the public eye, you're always garnering attention, to some extent you're always under scrutiny
[07:04.680 --> 07:09.760]  of the public, even if it's friendly public, they're usually a bunch of eyes on you, right?
[07:09.760 --> 07:14.080]  And then there's, depending on the agency, there are some accountability or there's very
[07:14.080 --> 07:17.960]  little accountability, so you do have to watch your peace and cues, which was never an issue
[07:17.960 --> 07:24.420]  for me because my ethical and moral construct is so much above what agencies require from
[07:25.120 --> 07:28.060]  their officers, it was never a problem for me.
[07:28.060 --> 07:35.100]  My ethos every day, every single night, when I sat my butt behind the wheel of that cruiser,
[07:35.100 --> 07:38.460]  every single night, the thought that would be in my head was how can I make this community
[07:38.460 --> 07:42.740]  better, which does not mean putting a bunch of people in jail, that's not necessarily
[07:42.740 --> 07:47.040]  the answer, how can I make the community that I serve better tomorrow than it is today?
[07:47.040 --> 07:50.620]  That was the ethos I had every single day, and that does not mean being a hard ass, it
[07:50.620 --> 07:54.340]  does not mean being excessively violent, it doesn't mean any of the things that so often
[07:54.340 --> 07:56.500]  wrongly define police work.
[07:56.500 --> 08:01.620]  So when I say it was surreal, what I mean is that entire construct I just described
[08:01.620 --> 08:06.380]  where you're constantly garnering public attention and you're being observed, now this was back
[08:06.380 --> 08:10.940]  in the 90s, so everybody didn't have cameras in their cell phones and no one was filming
[08:10.940 --> 08:16.220]  you, that was incredibly rare, whether or not you conducted yourself properly was to
[08:16.220 --> 08:19.660]  a great extent unto your own moral and ethical structure.
[08:19.660 --> 08:27.300]  So when I say it was surreal, during the riots, that whole entire dynamic disappeared.
[08:27.300 --> 08:33.060]  First of all, I worked a lot during those three days at night.
[08:33.060 --> 08:39.500]  Let's say I put in a 20-hour day, a good deal of that was from sundown to sunup, right?
[08:39.500 --> 08:43.620]  And in many areas of the city, in order to try and suppress things, the mayor had ordered
[08:43.620 --> 08:47.020]  or the police commission had ordered the power turned off.
[08:47.020 --> 08:51.740]  So when I say hours of darkness, we're talking about real darkness, not like where the sun
[08:51.740 --> 08:57.120]  goes down but every light in the community is on, no, this was pitch black.
[08:57.120 --> 09:04.540]  So the surreal nature was, I was at professionally, for the first time in my life, professionally,
[09:04.540 --> 09:09.540]  free from all societal constraints.
[09:09.540 --> 09:13.160]  This may sound weird, but it's true.
[09:13.160 --> 09:16.380]  When I was alone, which happened on several occasions during those three days, when I
[09:16.380 --> 09:26.580]  was alone, I could have done to anyone anything I chose to do with zero ramifications, zero
[09:26.580 --> 09:29.300]  consequence.
[09:29.300 --> 09:31.340]  That's kind of a surreal feeling, right?
[09:31.340 --> 09:34.380]  It's like, okay, so I've got this uniform, I've got this badge, it marks me out, I've
[09:34.380 --> 09:38.640]  got this gun, I can actually, if I so choose, I have the power to take a life, which normally
[09:38.640 --> 09:40.980]  is tightly, tightly constrained, right?
[09:40.980 --> 09:45.260]  By both the constitution, by law, by court decisions, by department policy, whatever
[09:45.260 --> 09:46.260]  you have.
[09:47.140 --> 09:49.660]  Very tightly constrained policy, as it should be.
[09:49.660 --> 09:53.540]  But now, that entire thing was flipped on its head.
[09:53.540 --> 09:57.500]  Anytime I was alone, if I saw a looter running away and I was by myself, let's say around
[09:57.500 --> 10:02.780]  the corner of a building, I could have brought my weapon out, press, press, ha ha, he's gone.
[10:02.780 --> 10:08.980]  I would never do that, but I'm just saying, that level of freedom was there.
[10:08.980 --> 10:13.260]  There was nobody, and I think there was gunshots all over the place, right, all the time.
[10:13.260 --> 10:15.180]  Nobody would have distinguished had I chosen to do that.
[10:15.180 --> 10:20.420]  Nobody would have distinguished my gunshot from a gunshot they heard 47 seconds earlier
[10:20.420 --> 10:21.940]  down the street.
[10:21.940 --> 10:22.940]  So this is what I'm saying.
[10:22.940 --> 10:23.940]  It was surreal.
[10:23.940 --> 10:32.600]  There was absolutely no constraints, no boundaries upon my personal behavior, except what I imposed
[10:32.600 --> 10:37.700]  on myself, and I'm, I don't want to say this, I don't want to say it like I'm patting myself
[10:37.700 --> 10:41.220]  on the back because I'm really not.
[10:41.220 --> 10:48.580]  I look back and I am pleased with the man I was.
[10:48.580 --> 10:49.580]  Nothing untoward happened.
[10:49.580 --> 10:54.540]  I didn't take advantage of that freedom, if we can call it that, I didn't take advantage
[10:54.540 --> 11:02.520]  of that one little bit, despite the fact that the system, the establishment would have allowed
[11:02.520 --> 11:05.420]  me to get away with anything.
[11:05.420 --> 11:09.940]  I still 100% of the time conducted myself within the confines of my own moral and ethical
[11:09.940 --> 11:11.180]  structure.
[11:11.180 --> 11:13.980]  The comment that I made on social media that got people interested, they said, oh, we'd
[11:13.980 --> 11:17.580]  like to hear more about this, is I mentioned that in the middle of the riots, I'd gotten
[11:17.580 --> 11:24.060]  out of my unit on the sidewalk with the citizens who were heavily armed hanging out on the
[11:24.060 --> 11:26.540]  sidewalk because they knew the cops couldn't do anything about it.
[11:26.540 --> 11:28.660]  Like, LA is not a gun town, right?
[11:28.660 --> 11:31.220]  LA is very anti-gun.
[11:31.220 --> 11:39.460]  So if you are a person of color, you would never in a million years go out on the sidewalk
[11:39.660 --> 11:45.100]  holding a shotgun, a rifle with a pistol tucked into your belt, you would never do that.
[11:45.100 --> 11:51.200]  You would be targeted, dragged to the ground, handcuffed, transported, booked and tried
[11:51.200 --> 11:54.660]  faster than you could, whatever, I'm just saying.
[11:54.660 --> 11:55.660]  It would be insane, right?
[11:55.660 --> 11:57.860]  In LA, you just don't ever do that.
[11:57.860 --> 12:01.660]  Except when you know the entire community is at odds with the cops and they can do any
[12:01.660 --> 12:04.860]  fucking thing you want, and that's exactly what happened.
[12:04.860 --> 12:11.860]  So I was in command of eight officers in two cars, four people per vehicle.
[12:11.860 --> 12:13.780]  I was in the lead vehicle and I was driving.
[12:13.780 --> 12:14.780]  That was my preference.
[12:14.780 --> 12:18.700]  We were driving down the road and there was a bunch of commercial buildings on the right
[12:18.700 --> 12:19.700]  side.
[12:19.700 --> 12:20.700]  I remember that.
[12:20.700 --> 12:23.140]  I could probably take you to where this happened, but I can't think of the street names right
[12:23.140 --> 12:24.140]  now.
[12:24.140 --> 12:26.260]  So driving down the street, commercial buildings on the right side.
[12:26.260 --> 12:29.540]  On the left side are apartment houses.
[12:30.180 --> 12:38.380]  And I'm driving along for blocks and the sidewalk is absolutely overflowing.
[12:38.380 --> 12:40.380]  All the residents, because you couldn't go anywhere, right?
[12:40.380 --> 12:43.300]  So it's like the SARS-CoV-2 lockdown, right?
[12:43.300 --> 12:44.300]  Everybody's home.
[12:44.300 --> 12:49.420]  So they're all coming out on the sidewalk and I'm going to guess probably about a third
[12:49.420 --> 12:54.180]  of them had firearms in their possession out on the sidewalk, right?
[12:54.180 --> 12:55.560]  I'm driving along.
[12:55.560 --> 12:57.380]  My driver's side is to them, of course.
[12:57.380 --> 13:00.580]  So I'm looking at them and they're looking at me.
[13:00.580 --> 13:03.980]  And I'm sure the unit behind us, same thing, right?
[13:03.980 --> 13:10.920]  So I'm looking at them and they're looking at me and it's this kind of like weird tension.
[13:10.920 --> 13:18.580]  It's like they're glaring at us and I wasn't, but presumably since we weren't smiling, the
[13:18.580 --> 13:22.900]  people on the sidewalk can imagine we were glaring at them, right?
[13:22.900 --> 13:24.900]  After about a block, I'm like, you know what?
[13:24.900 --> 13:27.520]  Fuck this.
[13:27.520 --> 13:34.060]  So I roll down my window and I stick my arm out the window, my left arm out the window.
[13:34.060 --> 13:35.900]  I turn my face to the crowd.
[13:35.900 --> 13:41.780]  I get a big smile on my face and I start waving at them, right?
[13:41.780 --> 13:43.980]  You want to guess what happened?
[13:43.980 --> 13:44.980]  Yeah.
[13:44.980 --> 13:49.540]  Like probably 70 or 80% of the people on the sidewalk, they started smiling and waving
[13:49.540 --> 13:50.980]  back at us, right?
[13:51.220 --> 13:52.220]  That's all it took.
[13:52.220 --> 13:55.740]  And I think that's really, I don't mean to project this beyond what happened at that
[13:55.740 --> 13:58.700]  moment, but I think that's a really important lesson for law enforcement in the community
[13:58.700 --> 13:59.700]  when they're odd.
[13:59.700 --> 14:02.220]  Sometimes perception is not reality.
[14:02.220 --> 14:06.180]  So as soon as I saw that response, I jumped on the radio and I said, hey guys, we're going
[14:06.180 --> 14:10.780]  to hang a UE, we're going to pull up and get out of the car.
[14:10.780 --> 14:13.940]  I wish I could have read the minds of the other seven officers under my command at that
[14:13.940 --> 14:14.940]  moment.
[14:14.940 --> 14:17.300]  They were probably like, are you fucking kidding?
[14:17.300 --> 14:20.900]  Do you see all those guns?
[14:20.900 --> 14:25.140]  Anyway, we flipped a UE, came up on their side of the street, put it in park, got out
[14:25.140 --> 14:26.140]  of the car.
[14:26.140 --> 14:30.660]  I walked up on the sidewalk, big smile on my face, hey guys, how you doing?
[14:30.660 --> 14:31.660]  Is everything cool?
[14:31.660 --> 14:32.660]  Do you need anything?
[14:32.660 --> 14:34.340]  Can I help?
[14:34.340 --> 14:35.340]  What can I do?
[14:35.340 --> 14:42.500]  Started shaking hands as I went down the line and every single person that I interacted
[14:42.500 --> 14:46.940]  with, and we're talking me personally, probably 60 or 70 people over, I don't know, maybe
[14:47.940 --> 14:51.860]  Every single one of those people, they were gracious.
[14:51.860 --> 14:52.940]  They smiled.
[14:52.940 --> 14:58.780]  They appreciated that I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help.
[14:58.780 --> 15:01.220]  I didn't say a word about their firearms.
[15:01.220 --> 15:02.220]  I didn't say, hey man, that's illegal.
[15:02.220 --> 15:03.220]  You can't do that.
[15:03.220 --> 15:04.220]  Take that back in the house.
[15:04.220 --> 15:05.220]  Nothing.
[15:05.220 --> 15:08.180]  Because that would have been fucking stupid.
[15:08.180 --> 15:11.940]  There was violence at hand and they were not committing it, right?
[15:11.940 --> 15:16.420]  So why would I lecture them in the middle of a crisis about being in possession of a
[15:16.420 --> 15:17.420]  gun?
[15:17.420 --> 15:24.140]  Which happens to be an unalienable right and I don't particularly care about all the little
[15:24.140 --> 15:28.900]  niggling details that have been built into the law over the last couple hundred years.
[15:28.900 --> 15:29.900]  It's an unalienable right.
[15:29.900 --> 15:32.340]  There was violence afoot, mass violence afoot.
[15:32.340 --> 15:36.860]  These people were out on the sidewalk with their guns and clearly from our interaction
[15:36.860 --> 15:42.140]  they were no threat to me or my people or others similarly uniformed.
[15:42.140 --> 15:45.860]  And I'm so glad I did that because who knows what would have happened with other officers
[15:46.060 --> 15:48.100]  later after the sun went down.
[15:48.100 --> 15:51.340]  But I changed the entire dynamic.
[15:51.340 --> 15:55.580]  I assure you, I mean I don't know this for a fact, but I assure you months later people
[15:55.580 --> 15:59.580]  were still like, hey, did I tell you what happened the first day of the riots?
[15:59.580 --> 16:01.580]  These cops actually got out and talked to us and they were really cool.
[16:01.580 --> 16:02.820]  They shook our hands.
[16:02.820 --> 16:05.060]  They offered to help out in any way they could.
[16:05.060 --> 16:08.260]  Can you imagine that in the hood, right, really?
[16:08.260 --> 16:11.660]  That's my story that stands out in my mind from day one.
[16:11.700 --> 16:19.140]  This is probably maybe 5 p.m. on the very first day of the riots.
[16:19.140 --> 16:22.900]  Another story that stands out in my mind was on day two, I believe.
[16:22.900 --> 16:24.060]  Some of it blurs together a little bit.
[16:24.060 --> 16:28.820]  It's funny the things that stand out vividly in my mind and things that not so much.
[16:28.820 --> 16:31.460]  So there was a small shopping center.
[16:31.460 --> 16:36.020]  It had like a restaurant anchored on one end and it probably had, I don't know, maybe eight
[16:36.020 --> 16:39.620]  or ten stores and then some other thing anchoring the other end.
[16:39.620 --> 16:40.620]  It wasn't very big.
[16:40.700 --> 16:43.020]  A hundred yards end to end.
[16:43.020 --> 16:48.180]  So I think it was a Kaiser Permanente parking lot, me and my team.
[16:48.180 --> 16:50.860]  And we had pulled in there to observe.
[16:50.860 --> 16:52.660]  And of course, there's looting going on.
[16:52.660 --> 16:55.780]  So we kind of got our game plan together.
[16:55.780 --> 17:01.340]  And I remember I was driving a Chevy Caprice and both of our units were in these ones that
[17:01.340 --> 17:07.020]  their police cars painted civilian colors and everybody who cares knows it's a cop car
[17:07.020 --> 17:09.700]  from a block away, even though it's not black and white.
[17:09.740 --> 17:12.940]  But so I still remember I jammed on the gas.
[17:12.940 --> 17:15.700]  I can fly across the street on the lead car.
[17:15.700 --> 17:21.620]  And I wanted to make an impression when we hit the parking lot, because it's looting,
[17:21.620 --> 17:21.820]  right?
[17:21.820 --> 17:24.620]  I want these people to scatter and get the fuck out of there.
[17:24.620 --> 17:27.260]  But I didn't realize the driveway was so steep.
[17:27.260 --> 17:30.180]  Like I say, it's funny what actually stands out in one's mind.
[17:30.180 --> 17:34.940]  I can still remember bottoming out that front suspension on going up.
[17:34.940 --> 17:38.220]  That driver was like, whoa, I think I just knocked my rear teeth out.
[17:38.260 --> 17:44.380]  So anyway, we pull up, doors fly open, we leap out of the car without there being the
[17:44.380 --> 17:46.580]  perception of any deadly threat at that moment.
[17:46.580 --> 17:48.900]  Nobody's got guns out, at least not under my command.
[17:48.900 --> 17:52.260]  And so we've got our big old rechargeable mag lights back in the day.
[17:52.260 --> 17:53.180]  That was the thing in our hands.
[17:53.180 --> 17:57.660]  That was going to be our defensive weapon, provided nobody tried to invoke deadly force
[17:57.660 --> 17:58.660]  against us.
[17:58.660 --> 18:05.140]  So I come leaping out of the car and everybody starts scattering, the bad guys, right?
[18:05.140 --> 18:11.500]  And of course, if you can grab somebody who's got a toaster oven in their arms, you want
[18:11.500 --> 18:12.580]  to do that, right?
[18:12.580 --> 18:14.060]  So some guy bolts.
[18:14.060 --> 18:17.100]  I forget why I started chasing him, but remember, the power's out.
[18:17.100 --> 18:18.940]  So everything is dark.
[18:18.940 --> 18:20.260]  So this guy bolts.
[18:20.260 --> 18:21.260]  He rabbits.
[18:21.260 --> 18:22.260]  And I start running after him.
[18:22.260 --> 18:24.860]  Well, I'm going to be very clear.
[18:24.860 --> 18:27.820]  Like back when I was in the Rangers, I mean, there were days that we did 12 mile runs,
[18:27.820 --> 18:30.180]  but I was never fast.
[18:30.180 --> 18:35.660]  When we did the beret run, when I first got there, shortly thereafter, when I did the
[18:35.660 --> 18:39.980]  beret run, it was five miles continuously, every mile being seven minute miles.
[18:39.980 --> 18:40.980]  I almost died.
[18:40.980 --> 18:43.420]  I mean, I'm exaggerating.
[18:43.420 --> 18:44.420]  But it killed me.
[18:44.420 --> 18:45.420]  It killed me.
[18:45.420 --> 18:46.420]  So I'm not a fast runner.
[18:46.420 --> 18:49.620]  And of course, a lot of street hoodlums are quick.
[18:49.620 --> 18:53.660]  And this guy was quick and I'm not, and plus I've got all this gear on, right?
[18:53.660 --> 18:58.060]  So I'm chasing this guy down the street and I see him disappear.
[18:58.060 --> 19:00.940]  He makes a left turn and disappears behind what looks like a retaining wall.
[19:00.940 --> 19:07.020]  When I get closer, I realize it's a driveway going down under an apartment complex that
[19:07.020 --> 19:08.940]  had subterranean parking.
[19:08.940 --> 19:11.380]  And I'm looking down in there.
[19:11.380 --> 19:18.300]  It is like a pitch black hole.
[19:18.300 --> 19:26.380]  And I'm looking in there and I'm like, okay, so the most I've got this guy for is potentially
[19:26.940 --> 19:29.940]  eluding.
[19:29.940 --> 19:34.860]  And I'm going to take myself down to this dark hole where I don't know if he's armed
[19:34.860 --> 19:35.860]  and if so with what.
[19:35.860 --> 19:39.060]  I don't even know if there's other people down there that I don't want to know in a
[19:39.060 --> 19:40.580]  completely dark environment.
[19:40.580 --> 19:44.420]  And of course, flashlights in an environment like that are not necessarily helpful because
[19:44.420 --> 19:49.900]  you've got, you know, excluding what's behind you, you've got pretty much almost a 360 degree.
[19:49.900 --> 19:55.140]  So if you turn your light on and you're lighting one particular direction and your adversary
[19:55.140 --> 19:59.900]  is someplace else outside your cone of light, yeah, you've just highlighted where you are,
[19:59.900 --> 20:00.900]  but not where he is.
[20:00.900 --> 20:02.140]  So there's a whole lot of it that goes into that.
[20:02.140 --> 20:09.140]  And I was like, okay, so if I go down there, there's no doubt I am placing the loss of
[20:09.140 --> 20:13.980]  my life at an elevated risk for looting.
[20:13.980 --> 20:14.980]  So no.
[20:14.980 --> 20:18.660]  And I turned around and walked my happy ass back to the car.
[20:18.660 --> 20:22.260]  And by that time, all the looters were gone and my team was standing around.
[20:22.700 --> 20:31.140]  It's just the kind of equations that one had to make in the moment where there was no backup.
[20:31.140 --> 20:35.220]  I could have gotten on the radio and called a couple of my people who were probably three
[20:35.220 --> 20:38.700]  quarters of a block away, but by then the guy would have been gone and there was no
[20:38.700 --> 20:41.220]  like real backup.
[20:41.220 --> 20:42.220]  Cops were stretched thin.
[20:42.220 --> 20:46.220]  Had I gotten on the radio and said, I need, I don't know, 10 units at my location, I would
[20:46.220 --> 20:49.660]  have gotten, yeah, sure, who the fuck are you again?
[20:49.660 --> 20:52.780]  So yeah, that was a not option.
[20:52.780 --> 20:59.140]  And I think that the takeaway from that story is in unusual circumstances, yeah, you have
[20:59.140 --> 21:05.100]  to make some intriguing choices about priorities.
[21:05.100 --> 21:07.140]  I'm not sure when this took place.
[21:07.140 --> 21:16.060]  I'm going to guess perhaps it was middle of the afternoon on day three, down in, best
[21:16.060 --> 21:20.020]  my recollection, somewhere in South Central.
[21:20.020 --> 21:21.500]  And LAPD had set up a command post.
[21:21.500 --> 21:24.220]  And the way they did that is, remember the old Western movies where they would circle
[21:24.220 --> 21:25.220]  the wagons?
[21:25.220 --> 21:30.460]  Well, LAPD had taken like, I don't know, I'm going to say like 20 school buses, long ass
[21:30.460 --> 21:34.820]  school buses, and they'd circle the wagons, they'd use a school bus in that manner.
[21:34.820 --> 21:41.020]  And so inside they had their big RV command center, their emergency command center.
[21:41.020 --> 21:44.940]  And they had, it was, I looked back, I'm like, what do you think you're facing?
[21:44.940 --> 21:46.820]  Are you thinking you're in Afghanistan or something?
[21:46.820 --> 21:51.060]  So they had sandbags at the gate and they had this thing, the arm that came down and
[21:51.060 --> 21:55.180]  went up to allow access into that inner sanctum.
[21:55.180 --> 21:56.740]  I had no interest in going in there.
[21:56.740 --> 22:02.940]  So we just stopped because there were pallets of water and things like that outside the
[22:02.940 --> 22:05.200]  bus line, right, the enclosure.
[22:05.200 --> 22:08.100]  So we pulled up and grabbed some water.
[22:08.100 --> 22:11.860]  We're kicking back, sitting on the hood of the car or whatever we're doing, just hydrating
[22:11.860 --> 22:15.340]  before we go back out again.
[22:15.340 --> 22:20.260]  And a black and white pulls up, I'm going to say like 50 feet from me, goes beyond my
[22:20.260 --> 22:22.220]  car, about 50 feet.
[22:22.220 --> 22:24.820]  Two uniforms get out, they go to the trunk of the car, they unlock the car, they reach
[22:24.820 --> 22:29.340]  into the car, and much to my surprise, they pull out a body.
[22:29.340 --> 22:33.140]  They flop it on the ground, they get in the unit and drive away.
[22:33.140 --> 22:36.140]  No paperwork, no explanation, nothing.
[22:36.140 --> 22:37.940]  Drop the body and go.
[22:37.940 --> 22:41.460]  The reason I share that story with you is to point out the utter and complete lack of
[22:41.460 --> 22:42.460]  accountability.
[22:42.460 --> 22:46.340]  The two uniforms in black and white would have thought it was completely acceptable
[22:46.340 --> 22:52.340]  to pull up, there's the command center right there, to pull up, drop a body, no paperwork,
[22:52.340 --> 22:53.340]  no explanation.
[22:53.340 --> 22:59.180]  Okay, this guy's dead, so we're dropping the body off with nothing.
[22:59.180 --> 23:06.140]  So when I talk about zero accountability during the riots, that sort of illustrates the phenomenon
[23:06.140 --> 23:07.980]  of which I'm speaking.
[23:07.980 --> 23:18.020]  With hindsight of almost 30 years, what are my thoughts about the 1992 Los Angeles riots?
[23:18.020 --> 23:20.620]  I fancy myself a historian.
[23:20.620 --> 23:25.540]  I have an absolute love of history.
[23:25.540 --> 23:30.500]  Thirty years is not a lot of history, but I'd like to think that my studying history
[23:30.500 --> 23:34.860]  for the last 30 years gives me a frame of reference to look at something even as short
[23:34.860 --> 23:36.860]  a duration as 30 years.
[23:36.860 --> 23:42.700]  What I take away from that is that society, I know in America we think things are supposed
[23:42.700 --> 23:47.380]  to be just above that, and that's total and utter bullshit.
[23:47.380 --> 23:53.700]  There will always, in my opinion, there will always be strife, there will always be dissension,
[23:53.700 --> 23:57.780]  there will always be the poor, there'll always be the poverty ridden, there'll always be
[23:57.780 --> 24:01.180]  the extremely wealthy, there'll always be the establishment, there'll always be the
[24:02.180 --> 24:12.380]  There'll always be the haves wanting government enforcement agents to keep the have-nots down
[24:12.380 --> 24:14.260]  in a way.
[24:14.260 --> 24:18.460]  I think that's existed from time immemorial, as soon as there was society, I think that
[24:18.460 --> 24:19.660]  existed.
[24:19.660 --> 24:23.760]  I think we put a better face on it today, I think we dress it up prettier, we put the
[24:23.760 --> 24:26.740]  dress on the pig, but I don't think it's any different.
[24:27.660 --> 24:33.860]  From time to time, we are going to have these kind of, I'll call them eruptions, right?
[24:33.860 --> 24:37.500]  Things go on smooth, and there's some rumbling, and then there's some more rumbling, and then
[24:37.500 --> 24:40.540]  some greater rumbling, and then it might get smooth again, and then some more rumbling
[24:40.540 --> 24:42.580]  comes along, and eventually something happens.
[24:42.580 --> 24:46.860]  In this case, it was the Rodney King incident and the acquittal of the officers.
[24:46.860 --> 24:50.140]  Eventually something happens, and suddenly the lid blows off.
[24:50.140 --> 24:51.820]  I think it's just the nature of the beast.
[24:51.820 --> 24:54.580]  In 2020 there was some rioting.
[24:54.580 --> 24:56.900]  You know, there's riots all over the world, all the time.
[24:56.900 --> 25:02.940]  So with an eye to history, and the way the establishment functions, and the way societies
[25:02.940 --> 25:11.700]  have functioned for thousands of years, I don't get as bent out of shape about riots
[25:11.700 --> 25:17.460]  as a lot of people, especially hard-right people, they're like, let's kill all the rioters!
[25:17.460 --> 25:19.140]  Out of their fucking minds.
[25:19.140 --> 25:20.620]  I don't have that point of view.
[25:20.660 --> 25:22.180]  I'd like to think it would never happen.
[25:22.180 --> 25:23.540]  I know it's going to happen.
[25:23.540 --> 25:25.340]  I know there are actually, I don't want to say good reasons.
[25:25.340 --> 25:27.220]  If I'm wrong, I'm not going to say good reasons.
[25:27.220 --> 25:33.180]  There are some real reasons, actual real reasons these kind of things kick off.
[25:33.180 --> 25:35.460]  Will we ever solve those problems?
[25:35.460 --> 25:36.460]  Who knows?
[25:36.460 --> 25:38.700]  While I'm a history student, I don't have a crystal ball.
[25:38.700 --> 25:40.900]  I can't tell you what tomorrow holds.
[25:40.900 --> 25:45.740]  But I wanted to share that experience, my experience of three days in the 1992 Los Angeles
[25:45.740 --> 25:47.100]  riots.
[25:47.100 --> 25:55.780]  I suppose I could say it was a formative experience for me, because it revealed to me the truth
[25:55.780 --> 26:03.020]  of who I am when there's absolutely zero societal constraints upon me.
[26:03.020 --> 26:08.540]  I have the power and I can do any fucking thing I want, now what am I going to do?
[26:08.540 --> 26:10.940]  And it taught me about me.