Savannah Homicide Detective Kevin Grogan: No Greater Honor, No Bigger Failure (Part One)

Today’s show takes us to one of my favorite places in the world, Savannah, Georgia. Savanah is home to the Savanah College of Art and Design (SCAD), some of the best food ever, history, haunted houses and ghost tours, and riverboats. It also has a seedy underbelly; that’s what we’re going to talk about today with former Savanah Police Department homicide Detective Kevin Grogan. 

Kevin Grogan is an Army Combat Veteran and former Savanah Police Department Homicide Detective. He has worked a variety of assignments within the Savanah Police Department, including vice and multi-agency task forces. 

Kevin is also a screenwriter, producer, and author of the Savannah True Crime Trilogy, with his latest book, No Greater Honor, No Bigger Failure.  

Please enjoy part one of this discussion with someone who has felt the weight of the badge and the ultimate cost it can have on someone. Part Two will go live next Sunday. 

 In today’s episode, we discuss:

·      His first job as a police officer and why he abruptly left the job.

·      Being in the Army and deployed to the Middle East.

·      His path to the Savanah Police Department.

·      Being a cop in one of the most unique cities in the country. 

·      Seeing the dark side of Savanah as a homicide detective. 

·      How often did tourists or SCAD students become crime victims? How were these cases treated compared to people who live there, especially the poorest? 

·      The Stairs of Death.

·      How Kevin became a homicide detective.

·      Working on different task forces with the ATF.

·      The illegal drug trade and human trafficking that went through the ports of Savanah.

 All of this and more on today’s episode of the Cops and Writers podcast.

Check out Kevin's Amazon Author Page! 

Head on over to my website! 

What's the craziest thing you saw when you were a cop?

My first week on the job, a guy running at me with a butcher knife. He'd just killed his brother over the last hot dog.

That's chapter 1. There are 33 more.

Police Stories: The Rookie Years just launched - available on Amazon. 

Search 'Police Stories Patrick O'Donnell' or click th

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Three guys jump out to rob the two couples that are walking at two o'clock in the morning, and she doesn't give up her purse and they very cowardly shoot her. Well, she wound up being the first homicide of uh 2006.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to the Cops and Riders Podcast. Your host, Sergeant Patrick O'Donnell, worked the streets in one of the nation's largest police departments for over 25 years. Ride along with O'Donnell and his expert guests as they help you navigate the oftentimes confusing and misunderstood world of law enforcement. O'Donnell and his guests on this show do not represent any law enforcement agency. The content of this show is not meant to be legal advice.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Hey Cops and Writers, thanks for being here with us today for another episode of the Cops and Writers Podcast. I'm Patrick O'Donnell and it'll be your host for today's show. This show is listener supported, so thanks to all of you who keep the show going. I would especially like to thank those of you who are patrons of the show. Your generosity helps pay for the software, equipment, and my time producing this show. Yes, you too can become a patron for less than a cup of coffee or a pint of Guinness. Just head on over to Patreon.com forward slash Cops and Riders. Today's show takes us to one of my favorite places in the world, Savannah, Georgia. Savannah is home to the Savannah College of Art and Design, also known as SCAD. Some of the best food ever, history, haunted houses, and ghost tours, and river boats. It also has a CD underbelly. That's what we're going to be talking about today, with former Savannah Police Department homicide detective Kevin Grogan. Kevin Grogan is an army combat veteran and former Savannah Police Department homicide detective. He has worked with a variety of assignments within the Savannah Police Department, including Vice and Multi-agency Task Forces. Kevin is also a screenwriter, producer, and author of the Savannah True Crime Trilogy with his latest book, No Greater Honor, No Bigger Failure. Please enjoy part one of this discussion with someone who has felt the weight of the badge and the ultimate costs it can have on someone. Part two will go live next Sunday. Kevin Grogan, welcome to the show. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. I'm so excited to talk to you today because we're going to be talking about Savannah, one of my favorite places in the country, if not in the world. My full disclosure, my daughter went to SCAD for four years. Graduated from there, and I visited as much as humanly possible because I absolutely love that city. And I gotta tell you, I love the city, and I don't know if I love Tyvee Island even more. I'm not sure. But did you ever get a chance to go over to Tybee?

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Oh yeah, I I you know, if you can see my complexion at all, you should probably know immediately that I avoid the beach at all costs. But you know, Tybee's a uh uh hop, skip, and a jump away, so you know I've I've spent a bunch of time there. I got buddies who who live out there, so I I'm there every so often.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah, I absolutely love Tybee. For those who don't know, it's about 30 miles east of Savannah, and you know, it's a straight shot, it's an easy drive. And it's some people call it, you know, they run on Tybee time. You know, it's kind of freeze-dried from the 60s and 70s. And what I found interesting, and you probably know a lot more about this than I do, they film movies there.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Oh, yeah. No, Savannah, Savannah is a huge uh the film industry is huge, and it it's partly because of SCAD, you know, the the resource, the infrastructure uh that SCAD's developed for the film industry, but it's also Savannah. I mean, it it it is I've been here for 23 years, and it really is uh very close to the if not the prettiest city in the country, it's very close.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, I I wholeheartedly agree. And they were filming the reboot of Baywatch when we were there. They had all the Baywatch trucks and all that, you know, and we saw The Rock and Zach Afron and all these Baywatch people doing these slow run down the beach. Yeah, you just have to laugh while you're watching that. And I remember I was going up to one of the security guys and then one of the um film people, and I'm like, Don't you have beaches in California? Why are you going to the opposite coast to film a story about something that happens over on the Pacific side? And they're like, money. It's a lot cheaper.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Tax breaks, baby.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

It's a lot cheaper to film our um movie in you know, Tybee Island than it is, you know, over in California. And I'm like, never thought of that. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

No, for sure. The the tax breaks are are tremendous here, and and like I said, that the film business has been kind of quiet for the last year or two, but it it's starting there's some major productions coming back in, but big movies have been shy here, so it's it's pretty cool, and I've met a lot of cool people trying to dabble in that world too, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Did you ever have any exposure to like any movie stars or famous people while you were there?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Oh yeah. I mean, there's famous there's famous people that come in and out of Savannah all the time, but uh you know, I I've been writing books for nine years now, so especially after the release of my first one, uh, I stuck my nose into the business as as deep as I could. I've been on movie sets and and met, you know, uh plenty of big name actors, but mostly to try to meet the producers, like, hey man, here's my project, let's fund it.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

But uh I've seen I I've seen a good bit of how the how the movie business works and uh how to get things done. And you know, just like anything else, it all comes down to money and funding.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah. Any funny stories about any of the actors? Anything interesting?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Uh not so much uh from my post uh police career, but working off duty when they were shooting SpongeBob, uh I was working off duty in uniform standing on Broughton Street, which is Main Street. Oh yeah. And uh Antonio Banderas was playing the uh pirate. Right. And I was looking one way and stepped backwards right into him and uh knocked him over. And he was he was super gracious and and cool about it, but the entourage around him lost their mind. So I got paid for the day, but they said you can go you can go home now.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

I was like, all right.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Oh my gosh, that's funny. My my brush with greatness.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Stuff happens.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

My brush with greatness was I'm kind of a meathead, and so is my son. And we'd work out at Alvin's in Savannah. Okay, you know, this is a few years back, and they were filming Baywatch.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

South side.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, and you know, not the best neighborhood, probably not the worst. That was kind of my take by the cars and the vibe, you know, that kind of thing. And we walk, we get in the parking lot, and here's this Ford uh Raptor truck, and it was all tricked out, and I'm like, this does not belong in this neighborhood. And he's like, What are you talking about, Dad? And I'm like, This is just sticking out like a sore thumb. It's uh there's something going on. So we go inside the gym, and for those who don't know, it's not even there anymore. But it was just more or less just a meathead gym, you know, there's duct tape around the benches, you know, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Uh it's a real gym. No album's was a real gym, no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yep. So we went there every day when whenever we'd go down there, and sure enough, there's the rock with two of his bodyguards. And my son is like, that's the rock. It's the rock. And I'm like, Yeah, it is. What should we do? I said, Leave him alone. That's what we should do. He doesn't want to talk to us.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

He's working out. Make sure you stay out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, and his two bodyguards were larger than him. I didn't think it was possible. This guy, the rock in life, Dwayne Johnson is gigantic. He is a very large man. His bodyguards were larger than him.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

And he he's a huge man, he's a huge personality. He uh he's good friends with a good buddy of mine, uh, Mel Chansey. They they're actually working on a production together's seven bucks uh company. They're work Mel's working on a project with them. So they're you know, big dudes, but uh, you know, bigger personality. Yeah, and I've never heard it, I've never heard a bad word about. Never heard a bad word about them.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

So they were walking out, and we did the the gym nod, and I said, Hey, what's up? And he says, Hey guys, how are you doing? And that was you know, that was our brush with him, totally nice dude. And then later on, like the next day, we're at the boardwalk on Tybee, and you know, there's there's a girl selling ice cream, you know, blah blah blah. And I said, Hey, do any of the stars ever come over here and you know, like buy ice ice cream from you? She said, Oh yeah. She said, Who's the nicest guy? She said, The rock all day. He leaves huge tips, he's very nice. He's just he treats us really well. I said, Okay, who's the biggest asshole? She said, Zach Efron. I can't stand him. He treats us like garbage. And I'm like, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. But, anyways, they're just there's our Hollywood minute for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

There you go. Ghost Savannah. They're everywhere. You know, the the SCAD Film Festival brings a lot of big, big names in.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

I can only imagine. But let's start with you. That's why we're here. In the beginning, where did you grow up and how would you describe your childhood?

SPEAKER_02 9:40

I grew up in the first town established in Connecticut, Windsor, which was uh settled in 1633, a hundred years before the beautiful city of Savannah. Uh but my childhood was great. You know, I I I grew up both my folks uh were in my house. Uh I'm the youngest of five kids.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So I was a spoiled little shit. Uh but you know, my my childhood was great. Nothing to uh nothing to cry about there for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

What'd your uh mom and dad do for a living?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

My mother is a teacher and my father was an engineer.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Okay. So highly educated. And your uh your um brothers and sisters they wound up being what direction did they go?

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Uh all college kids. Uh I'll call you know, my my brother's uh Ivy League graduate and uh he works in humanitarian affairs at the United Nations. So, you know, it higher intellectual and then me.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Well, I'm kind of the opposite where my brother and I were the first ones in the family to go to college. And I mean I got D's and F's, you know, through most of it. You know, I I was a horrible, horrible student. Then I found out later that I'm dyslexic. I can't read fast at all, and I have a hard time comprehending. So that you know, I remember a a teacher I went to Catholic grade school, you know, both my parents are Irish immigrants, so I mean like education was kind of secondary. And you know, I remember a parent-teacher conference, I'm like in fourth or fifth grade, and the teacher's like, Patrick's stupid, he's just dumb. And I'm like, I am sitting here. Yeah, you're you're not doing much for my self-esteem, you know. No eighth place trophies for me, thank you very much. But you know, but hey, you know, you you overcome, you adapt, you you know, you make it through it. But how would your friends in high school describe you?

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Uh back then, yeah, a bullshitter. You know, I I was uh you know, I was all about uh playing sports, chasing girls. That that was my uh my MO, and I I would do or say anything to make those happen for me.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

So uh What was your sport of I lived in a very what'd you play?

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Uh I loved hockey. I wasn't very good at it, uh, but martial arts, you know, karate and boxing were really cool what I focused on.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Hence the hence the beautiful appearance because I've had the crap kicked out of me several times.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

You and me both. Uh what year did you graduate from high school? We're probably pretty close in age.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

1993.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Okay. I was 82, so I'm older. Um, but it was boxing was huge.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

I have not aged well, man. I I haven't aged well at all.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Well, I've had my nose broken so many times, you know, it became like gumby. I could just like move it around. It was bad. Yeah. But yeah. So you're in high school, and what were you thinking? It's like, okay, am I gonna go to college right away? Am I gonna get a job? What was what direction were you heading?

SPEAKER_02 13:32

No, college was always the direction, and law enforcement was uh what was going to follow, and that that's pretty much since my earliest memories. You know, I remember in 1981 when President Reagan got shot. Um that was kind of my call uh to service. I was like, hey, I I wanted to be in the Secret Service. You know, they always tell kids you can be whatever you want. What they don't tell you is if you don't have uh 2020 vision uh that's correctable, you'll never be in the Secret Service, and I'm blind as the bat. So that didn't happen. But uh my uncle, so my my mother's sister's husband was a big deal in Springfield, Massachusetts. He worked narcotics and homicide and that. So I would go up to my grandmother's house and she would save all the clippings from the newspapers with my uncle Mac, and I would flip through those like they were the coolest stories in the history of the world. So I I knew right away that that's what I was gonna do. So when I got out of high school, I went to Westfield State College, which is just north of where I grew up, probably twenty minutes, half an hour uh northwest of where I grew up, outside of the city of Springfield, Mass. And uh, you know, they had a very good, still do have a very good criminal justice program, so that's what I did.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Gotcha. Now, why did mom and dad say that hey, I want to be a cop? What was their reaction?

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Uh my my parents, you know, my parents are were uh as supportive in anything we did, and and they were so polar opposite where my father was very uh trade school, learn a skill, develop it, learn how to work. My mother was liberal arts, read, think, uh, you know, dream big, those types of things. So I could have told them I was gonna go join the circus. They would have uh cautioned me on the it would have driven my father crazy. My mother would have uh cautioned me on how things go, but they they would have let me go do it. Uh they my parents were very, very good about letting me make my own mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

So you get out of college and did you go and get your first cop job right away?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Immediately. Yeah, right. I got a job in my hometown of Windsor right as I was graduating college. So I pretty much came home for a couple weeks and went to the police academy, which was a blessing and a curse uh all at the same time. So I was very young, uh still in my party days, so I drinking like an idiot, which has followed me pretty much through my life. Um, but being a police officer in your hometown where you grew up, being the youngest of five kids, where your mother taught at the high school, your father was uh very active in the recreational sports and that kind of stuff. So I'm in the academy and people are making tra you know, cops, my uh department was making traffic stops, and it was like, I know Grogan, I know Grogan, and then like, we don't even know who the fuck that is. Because I'm in the academy, I'm not the real police yet, but you know, so by the time I got to the department, people were already sick of me. They're like, oh Jesus, you're that head. Uh but I I didn't handle like I said, uh my world was very, very small. I my whole existence was pretty much in a uh 30 mile radius between uh where I grew up, where I went to college, that kind of stuff. So I I lived in where I thought I was worldly, I didn't know shit about shit. That's mostly because I was 23 years old, but um, so it it didn't work out so great. Uh the chief and I had a very serious talk and he said maybe you should try something different. And that was heartbreaking to me because I had always wanted to be a cop, but I saw his point. So uh I joined I left that department and joined a gang, the United States Army. And they uh that broadened my horizons quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Why the army? Why not another branch?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Uh you know what? I I looked at all of them.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Um I I love to say that two of my buddies when we graduated high school, I went to college, they we wanted to be Marines. And uh I went with them to the recruiting station and they gave us an intelligence test and I passed, so they wouldn't let me in. But those two those two idiots, they they got in no problem. Nah, uh it just I the army was just uh the right thing. Um I knew I wanted to work protection and there was this new thing back then in in around 1996, 98 called the internet, and uh I had looked into a couple of uh uh opportunities there and I saw that there was an opportunity in the army to work protection. So like I said, I always wanted to be in the Secret Service, but I I didn't meet the uh vision requirements. So I got a chance to do it in the army. I I actually wound up being stationed in Germany in the one company in all of Europe that provides protection, and I just happened to get assigned to that company. So, you know, if that tells you it was meant to be, I I don't know uh I don't know what will. But I I wound up working protection. Uh got to see all of, if not most of most of, if not all, of Europe. Uh and uh some other fancy places. But it was it was really cool. I got to see uh the commanding general of the United States Army Europe was a four-star. His name was Montgomery Miggs, uh a historic figure in the Army. His great great great uncle was the first quartermaster general of the army. But I got to see that man lead in command, so I got to see leadership at its highest levels, and and the man was I mean, they don't hand out stars uh in the army, and they definitely don't hand out four of them.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

So uh what about his style or command presence or his leadership? What stuck out in your head? You know, you just said that you know you learned a lot from him. What what exactly did you learn from him?

SPEAKER_02 19:47

He was a soldier. And and you know, I can't think of a bigger compliment that I can give somebody. He was truthfully everything I I think a a sh soldier should be. Uh you know, West Point grad, uh he he was a colonel of uh brigade commander during the first Gulf War um and and did some pretty historic uh maneuvers there, which uh ended that war pretty quick. Uh he was a big part of that. Uh but he was just he knew who he was and he carried uh he carried his rank and his position uh like a gentleman. He never had to tell you he was the boss, he never had to tell you he was a general. He never had to say it because you knew in everything he said and did that this man was a leader, and and I I have taken that, you know. I don't ever need to pound my chest and say, well I'm this, I'm that, I'm any of those things. I just am who I am and I carry it the way I do, and it it's mostly because of him. You know, my dad was a lot that way, uh, in that you just are who you are, and y don't make apologies for that, just be who you are. But when you're a leader uh in a military uh organization, you know, people are looking to you and he was the the one who you could look at him anytime and there was no questioning who was in charge, ever.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Sure. Wow. So you do your stint in the army, how long were you in?

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Five years. Five years, yeah. So I I did uh my first you know, in I was in the army at a really cool time. So I joined in ninety-nine uh and I got out in two thousand four. Well, if you remember uh in two thousand one, I think it was September eleventh, something happened in in September eleventh of two thousand one. So we went I was in the army when we went from a peacetime army to a very active wartime uh army and I I finished up my career. I I left Germany, went to Fort Stewart, my son was born, and then I was on the first thing smoking to Sodder City, Baghdad in uh 2003. So I got to see that.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Uh did you join the infantry then?

SPEAKER_02 22:04

No, uh MP. I was I was an MP. So you know, military police uh uh was the my MOS the whole time. Oh I just happened to be doing protection. That was my assignment when I was in Germany. But I I deployed when I was in Germany I deployed to the Balkans too. I went to Kosovo, which was super cool for me. Wow. Uh because I was a political science minor. So the breakup of Yugoslavia in in the mid nineties was the big political thing that was going on and I got to not only study it but see it when I was uh boots on ground. So that was that was really uh eye opening for me as a person. Uh no better education than being somewhere uh to learn what's going on there. But then again, you know, September eleventh happened uh and that rest is history, but for me it it got me an all expense paid trip to uh Baghdad.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, I I have buddies that were there and they were MPs. A lot of their job was guarding prisoners of war. That's those types of things.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah, there was there was that and then there was our function. We we were assigned to the second Armored Cavalry Regiment. So uh we we just we did patrols and we trained the Iraqi police was part of our thing. I wound up uh doing another protection gig for the second ACR commander for a short while uh Colonel Brad May another great American another great leader um but you know I I got a chance to see history. Yeah absolutely bagged that in 2003 it was pretty hot topic back then.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Sure. Now I think I know the answer to this but I'll still ask knowing what you know now would you still have joined in a heartbeat. Yeah that's what I got that in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

I I would have joined sooner and probably stayed longer and know what I know now but uh yeah I mean service to country means everything to me. Um I I don't know that I was horribly patriotic growing up I mean I loved America I was I was proud uh but basic training uh that indoctrination of being a soldier and love of country and sense of duty that that stuck with me and and it's still there. You know I'm I'm sure I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

So how long after you got out of the army did you join the Savannah PD and w why Savannah?

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Well I got out at Fort Stewart which is in Hinesville Georgia just southwest of Savannah. Okay and um so I got home from Iraq on March 11th 2004 and I graduated to police academy on March 11th 2005. Oh okay so so within a ye within literally within a year of getting my boots back on American soil I was graduating the police academy and going to work in Savannah. But I I I got out of the Army that September I took a job with the Department of Defense or Department of the Army police department on Fort Stewart for a very short while but that was not uh the law enforcement mission that I was wanting wanting to be part of. You know I I wanted to be a real cop. I wanted to go out and get it I wanted to solve murders I wanted to stick my nose in with the big dogs. Uh so my mother in law at the time so my ex-wife's mother was a sergeant uh with the Savannah police department and I I went there you know the hiring process was quick it was painless I was right out of the army so going to the academy it was that was really something I was accustomed to anyway. So i as soon as I could I got out on the road and uh so that's where all the fun began for sure yeah so as far as you know your academy experience was that like at a tech school or what did that look like it was funny because uh you know in Connecticut the police academy is its own thing now you have multiple municipalities that you know do the post certification and the state patrol they were upstairs uh far more paramilitaristic than uh but when I got to Savannah it was the Southeast Regional uh Academy so same thing a bunch of different municipalities but we didn't have our own building we were part of uh Armstrong Atlanta State Atlantic State University which is now Georgia Southern University um but we were part of the campus they had a really good uh criminal justice and law enforcement degree program there but we also had the police academy so it was just a couple classrooms there and then we went to satellite uh places to do different types of training like firearm and driving obviously that's not on a college campus.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Interesting so you joined the Savannah PD how big of a department was that well I joined the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department and and I was the first class to graduate I was in the first class to graduate from the Academy of the merge department. So Chatham County and the city of Savannah had merged uh you know obviously for financial reasons but um I was very lucky to be there on the ground floor when that happened uh because the department was we were about six hundred sworn at that time uh in a city that's a hundred and fifty thousand but now you've got the whole county so you're you're closer to two hundred and fifty three hundred thousand oh okay with all the unincorporated areas gotcha now was it a sheriff or a chief that was in charge?

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Chief Chief yeah so the Chatham County Sheriff's Department is unlike a lot of sheriff's departments in Georgia where they have the full law enforcement uh mission the sheriff in Chatham County mostly they they do have a law enforcement wing but they mostly cover the jail the courthouse uh and you know certain paperwork and that kind of stuff right right so you get into the Savannah PD and you know Savannah is such a unique city I mean there you know we talked at the top of the show you know it's like you have SCAD you know there's a lot of money that pours in there and tourism is huge obviously as well and there's you know like I said serious money in there and there's also serious poverty there as well living amongst each other I'm used to like in Milwaukee okay the rich the ultra rich people aren't close to the very poor people you know the people living on by the lake or these really nice you know mansions you know they're far removed from the poorest people in the city where I'm driving down the streets in Savannah and I'm like there's these beautiful like southern style I think they're mansions you know wrap around porches you know Spanish moss it's just it's something out of a movie or you know a picture. And then you go another block and there's these dilapidated houses that are falling in that are just straight up ghetto. And I'm like how does this how does this how does this I I I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. No and it's a recipe for disaster in one way and it it's a recipe for you know uh culture in another you know the thing is you you do you have the richest of the rich so Jones Street Gatson Street you have these million dollar homes and two three blocks away you have housing projects of the with the poorest of poor people and then now your workforce so hospitality is a huge thing tourism is a huge thing in Savannah so who takes all the jobs to work in your hotels your restaurants and that kind of stuff usually poor people so now everybody's all mixed together and man it it it makes for a hell of a show if you're a cop let me tell you I was just you know that's the first thing that popped in my head when I started doing my research on you I'm like oh my god Savannah is a very unique city you know and I would think that optics are everything in a city like that because they they still want these kids you know paying fifty thousand dollars you know a year for tuition to go to SCAD and tourism you know they want the tourists you know and yeah I saw firsthand you know it's just like how often did either tourists or SCAD students become victims of crimes like serious crimes uh I wouldn't say often I I always say you know Savannah first of all again it's a beautiful city and you do have you know it it's so picturesque and you have SCAD right in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Now SCAD owns half of Savannah yeah no kidding yeah SCAD's base basically a real estate company at at this point uh but you know if it weren't for SCAD Savannah would have uh fallen in on itself because of the way it's run by our city government but sure I'm not a political guy but there's no question that that's uh and SCAD's a billion dollar industry right now oh yeah absolutely not exaggerating I mean it's it's it's unbelievable so you say fifty thousand dollars a year I'm thinking I she hasn't been there in a while because I'm sure it's much more than fifty thousand a year now uh but that being said it the cool part is this so when I got out of the academy I was assigned to the downtown precinct which is the touristy part of Savannah I mean absolutely beautiful you got the historic district you got everything that you read about in tourist brochures is in our precinct but it's surrounded by again the the poorest of the poor and that was also in our precinct so on a Friday night I could go hang out downtown when the clubs are letting out and hit on girls and and you know do what cops do think I'm super cool but if I wanted to go chase bad guys I could go two blocks down the road and I'd be up to my neck in it and that's that's exactly what I did. So I I got great exposure to both because the thing is you go out and you fight crime uh aggressively and you can't sometimes you need a break from that and let me tell you rolling down Broughton Street or uh walking around Forsyth Park it's a good break from that. Yeah you know I what popped into my head was you know down by the river walk if anybody's ever been there how many people go ass over tea kettle down those stairs oh yeah oh I mean that's the stone stairs of death is what they're called yeah I mean that's it that's poor EMS you know I I would arrive to those calls as late as I could because I already knew how that was going.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

I mean that especially after a couple of cocktails I can't face yeah I can't imagine Savannah's a drink in town there's no yeah there's no nobody's shy about that but yeah it's highly encouraged I don't know if it's gotten any better but I I have I have several mental images of how the fall down the stairs ends yeah for those who haven't been there they have these ridiculous stairs that were probably built a hundred and fifty years ago that are like four feet you know from one stair to the next at least it feels that way uh you feel like you're traversing a mountain all some are four some are two and a half right some are like six inches you know like you said it was they're 200 years old so nobody was sitting there yeah like we can get up with these there it'll be fine. Yeah I I always got a kick out of that. So you know as far as like say a SCAD student or a tourist is the victim of a violent crime is there different buzzers and bells that go off or notifications you're like oh shit well for the for the police department no and the thing is SCAD so SCAD has their own security force and they try to isolate as much as they can for publicity reasons and all that and I'm I'm not gonna go off on SCAD but you know they have a certain way of handling things so it's not as prevalent as you would think however you know the the first line uh of my first book Black Sheep White Cop Savannah Exposed is if there's one thing Savannah Georgia hates it's a dead white girl.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

And let me tell you uh the political response that you get when somebody that's not a poor black kid gets killed in Savannah it's immense. Like Savannah loses its mind. Now to me it it never made any difference. You know somebody gets shot, somebody gets killed I'm acting the same way no matter what their socioeconomic background is, no matter what their race is cops respond I've never heard somebody on a 911 call go, uh could you give me the uh race and ethnicity of the victim police? It 'cause they're they're not gonna respond any different. They cops work cases the way they work cases. And I I think that's a gross misconception.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Uh now politicians and media they respond to different calls differently so bells and whistles go off for the media sure uh and uh politicians but the police department responds the same way every time yeah upper management of police and you know like mayor etc they're really good at getting over excited about things and you know just overreacting to pretty much everything and that's that's universal I think in every major metro metropolitan area but what I found interesting is there weren't as many kids especially like from SCAD that weren't becoming victims because it would be easy hunting. I mean I I remember we went out to eat one time and there was this kid you know in Milwaukee we'd call him a mope you know he's just moping around and he's just looking for a victim you could tell and and I'm with you know like I don't know five six people it's all family and they're oblivious to him and I look at him we lock eyes and he looks at me and he just doesn't avowed face and starts walking away you know they look for right because they because they know I mean they they they thrive on that they understand and all I can say is it doesn't happen as much as you think uh which is kind of amazing because of the proximity again you got people to mix in it does happen but uh I always say this about Savannah you're s if you're not buying crack selling crack or trying to arrange some sort of crack deal in the city of Savannah your chances of of getting involved in a robbery or shooting or something like that are are pretty slim.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yeah it's it happens but not as much as you think.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

That's why people with the crime numbers etc they're very skewed where you're victim of the homicide or the nonfatal shooting or whatever they're usually engaged in some kind of criminality when they become a victim of a crime.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Usually the the the worst part about it is and and it's it's something that you and I know from professional experience but it gets glazed over in TV and that kind of stuff. Yeah. If you dip your toe okay and and all it takes is dipping your toe into criminality you don't even have to be involved in the criminality if you're close to somebody who is and you're just guilty by association you're just there the chances of things happening to you like our big red ball murder when I first started uh was there was a girl that left a cotillion and she's walking back they're walking through one of the scenic squares and uh three guys jump out to rob the two couples that are walking at two o'clock in the morning and she doesn't give up her purse and they very cowardly shoot her. Well she wound up being the first homicide of uh 2006 and again a white girl gets killed in Savannah they lose their mind so this special fat task force was formed it was called the expanded patrol operation and basically the chief told us go get 'em no no leash no gloves no nothing go get 'em and boy oh boy did we did but that happened right at the beginning of my career. So I got thrust right into I mean it was a great opportunity for me to develop uh the guys I were working with were some of the best cops in the city so immediately I'm learning at at a hundred miles an hour uh and and dipping in it. But so that task force gets formed. The funny thing is if you look at that from the outside they were just walking through the square they weren't bothering anybody and that's exactly what they were doing. They were walking back to one of the carriage houses right next to the civic center in downtown.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

But in that carriage house they were packaging weighing and selling dope.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Okay?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Not the girl that was there but the guy she was with were so the guys that worked that murder tell me that there was no connection between them dealing drugs. We didn't my partner Josh and I uh actually were the ones that found them dealing dope from that uh destination but I've been told over the years that that absolutely was not corrected but no connected but nobody's gonna tell me that you know I I know how it works. These guys I sell you the drugs you bring it into your apartment you package it up and you're gonna sell it I can come rob you and get my dope back get a hundred percent profit or if you've already sold it I'll just rob you of the money I get a hundred percent profit so you know to me it's pretty tactical if I sell you the drugs come back and and rob you if you're a weak mark and these guys were not they were not gangsters they were not you know the the college kids that were selling dope out of their carriage house they were not career criminals but the guys that they were being supplied by were absolutely career criminals.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Were there um organized gangs you know like in walkie we had gangster disciples vice lords etc what were the gangs like by you or were there like serious gang affiliations in Savannah?

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Absolute uh gang affiliations in in Savannah mostly uh Crips and gangster disciples there's small contingents of of bloods in that anywhere you got cities you got gangs uh and and the thing is for the longest time Savannah wouldn't talk about that uh but right towards near the end of my career uh they because they didn't want it to affect tourism right yeah once you couldn't even say you couldn't even say the gang word uh for the first four or five years I was with the department but once it got out and they realized that it didn't affect the tourist dollar the or the bottom line like okay you can say gang now uh but again that's city that's city government yeah it is the thing about Savannah and I and I don't know that it's unique but uh there are the bloodscrips gangster disciples all that kind of stuff but more more prevalent are the neighborhood gangs. Sure. Okay so guys would click up by their housing project East Side West Side was a big thing. Uh the the bloods the Crips and the gangster disciples stuff comes from the guys who go to prison and come back.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

And they bring that to their neighborhood so now you get you know the Hitch Village projects uh linking up with the Crips because the majority of them that went away to prison they all had to click up Crip to survive and then when they came home they brought some of that to the neighborhood and that you know that's happened everywhere in every city all over the country but Savannah I always say is very neighborhood because the thing is in Savannah we're all cousins. Everybody's related but if you're if you grew up on the uh west side and you wind up on the east side you're gonna have some troubles.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah the the whole cousin thing yes is that your real cousin or is that your play cousin?

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Yeah that's always I I would love that you know my we call them Savannah cousins so are y'all real cousin or are you savannah cousins? Like blood cousins or savannah cousins and I I would always I love those interviews the street interviews where you're sitting there talking to like hey man what's this dude's name? Oh that's my cousin yeah but what's his name? Oh I don't know him like that.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yeah so he's your cousin but you don't you yeah Cookie or T-bone no what's his real name I don't know his real name I only I only know him as black.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Yeah I only know him as as blue.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah all right man I get it exactly that's funny so what was your career progression with Savannah yeah obviously everybody starts in patrol and then how long did it take you I know you became a detective you were in homicide how long did it take you to get to that point?

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Very very lucky I had a very blessed career I had uh like I said I walked into that the opportunity where the uh task force was formed right when I was so I had been cut loose on the street for about four months before this task force was formed uh and then I went did that for about eleven months I get back from that I go back to the downtown precinct I'm there for a couple months and I got picked up on an OCDF task force with the uh ATF so they were working gangs in the neighborhood that I happened to beat to it was my beat so I knew you know what's what who's who and all that so I got roped into that which was a great opportunity. Uh when that ended uh I wound up going to work for narcotics a narcotics task force out in uh two separate counties because I was not a fan of the way our local um narcotics task force worked uh I didn't want to be associated with the way they did business so I left went out to Liberty County and Long County and worked uh narcotics for three years but while I was there I wound up working two more O C F case I worked a store for Front operation with the ATF and then I worked uh another OS to def case on a gang out there with the FBI and DEA. So, you know, I got a lot of experience in during my narcotics time. Uh and then when the interim chief became the actual chief in Savannah, I left the drug task force and came back to Savannah. I was on patrol for maybe two months when I came back, and then got pulled to another ATF task force where we were working gangs and guns. It was basically a domestic counterinsurgency. The second book I wrote, uh Ruffian, is details that time, and then that ran for about two years. Uh, and I went from that assignment and got promoted into homicide.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Now, thinking of Savannah, again, I think of SCAD, I think of you know, tourism, it's a beautiful city, but it's also one of the largest ports in the country. I think it and I didn't realize that till third largest port on the east coast. Yes, I I was shocked. I took a paddle boat ride with my son and my daughter, and you know, along the river, and I'm like, oh, I hope you didn't get in the water.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

I hope you stayed in the boat.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

No, we stayed in the boat. I know better than that. But uh, I was like, oh, and you know, he was whoever the narrator was, you know, like we're taking this tour, and yeah, they're the third. I'm like, oh wow. So immediately my cop brain goes to I wonder how much smuggling is going on, how much dope or guns is going through that port.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Yeah, I mean the human traffic, the human trafficking, the dope, the all of those things coming off the ports. I mean, that's what makes Savannah Savannah. There's no, you know, it was such a cool place to police because you could see, you know, street crime to organized crime at all at all those different levels. It just all you had to do was work to find it.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Who ran the docks, like criminality-wise?

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Or was there like uh well it the ILA, the the you know so the specifically, it that's always been in question. But uh, you know, the ILA, uh the union down there, those guys, you know, they work their asses off, they they uh load and unload those uh containers and that. But the amount of drugs that comes through that the is so who knows it? Not exactly uh don't know exactly, but right out the front gate of the uh ports in Garden City, you know, you have the headquarters, you have the what do you call it, the clubhouse for the outlaws, you know, the outlaw motorcycle getting there right out the front gate. Uh-huh. Yeah, and but we don't have a big problem with that because they don't kill anybody. But if you're telling me that dope isn't coming out of the ports going to the outlaws and and getting distributed, I mean I'm like, your eyes aren't open.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

But I I mean who who runs it, who knows, really. But it it's it's not the Italians, you know, it's it's we're we have a very uh big Greek uh population down here, and some of those old guys are always sitting around, never too worried about uh, never too worried about this, never too worried about that.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

But Savannah's biggest problem is violence, and the violence is perpetrated by you know the street level stuff. That that is Savannah's biggest blight. That is the biggest problem.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Thanks everyone for joining me and former Savannah Police Department homicide detective Kevin Grogan. We're just getting started with Kevin's amazing career. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this conversation next Sunday. Well, that wraps up another episode of the Cops Myers Podcast. If you haven't done so yet, can you take a minute and rate and review the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts? If you have already, thank you. As always, thank you for all of your support. And of course, let's be careful out there.