Episode 166: Bite Sized Murders 5: Officer Involved Shootings

 In this episode Janus and Joyous discuss three shorter cases that involve police officers and armed suspects. These are 3 similar cases, yet different in many regards with different outcomes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Unsung Murder Ballads is a true crime podcast, and as such, we will be discussing topics that are disturbing, graphic, and often violent in nature. So this is not for children under the age of 13.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

But you know this because you did start playing this episode. So here are some things you might not know about us.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

We are going to be critical of mistakes made by both criminals and law enforcement.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

We're going to express our views on things that you might not always agree with.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We will occasionally go on an off-topic tangent.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

And we are going to use dark humor to express ourselves now and then.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

So if you're easily triggered, this might not be the podcast for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

However, if this is your cup of tea, then raise your pinky finger while you sip and join us for this week's horrific case, you sick bastards.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

And I'm Joyce Dead. All right, so tonight we have three short cases, which we normally call a bite-sized murder. So we're back for that. Yay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

The difference being that I'm gonna tell you all three cases, whereas we used to do one for each of us when Jameson was still with us. But I don't see a reason to have you read one and me read two. If you know what I mean, like the whole idea is you hearing how you react to them. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Personally, I I love it when you tell me a story. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Right. And and this has a theme, and it just makes sense that you know one of us would present it versus having it divided out, you know? So I don't know. I figure we'll try it out this way.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I believe you and I trust you.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

And it's also been 23 episodes or so since we did the last bite-sized murder cases.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Wow. And and you know what? I've been doing a really good job with my attention span. I'm just gonna give myself credit listening to long stories, but uh I do love a break when I can have a nice short, succinct one.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, and this one, like I said, there's a theme, and in this case, it's officer-involved shootings.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Oh shit. Okay, well, Marty fired up. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

This is interesting stuff. So again, three short cases. We'll see how this goes. I don't think this will be a super long episode, but who knows? With us, it could be an hour.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah, I might be yelling about this topic when I see uh yeah, it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

It is interesting. So here we go. First one. There's not really going to be a teaser since they're all so short. So on January 24th, 2025, in Fountain Valley, California, police lieutenant Mike Parsons responded to an incident that began around 11 a.m. after a concerned community member called the police to report a disturbed man attempting to open a woman's car door.

unknown 2:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

The woman was attempting to drive away from a middle school, and the man basically approached her car and tried to open the door. Oh, fuck off, don't do that. And as she told police, quote, the man appeared to have something wrong with him, unquote. As he ran up and began pulling on her.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, it's a behavior, and you'll understand why in a bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Now keep in mind, I did watch the officer body cam footage of the once they arrived and had interactions with this guy. He was definitely not in his right mind. Whether it was drugs or mental illness, I don't know, but he clearly wasn't in his right mind. So this man was eventually identified as 26-year-old Ocean McClintock. And I have to say, this name is like the word Ocean, but it's an S instead of a C. So I'm assuming it's Ocean, but it could be Oshawn. It could be O'Shea. Exactly. It's weird, but it's a really cool name.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Oh, with no apostrophe.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Correct. It's really, it's kind of cool, I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

It is a cool name.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

And McClintock gives Irish Scottish, so it could be pronounced completely different.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Who knows? It's pretty cool. Now he McClintock was shirtless but wearing jeans and he had a shaved head. So the officer responded to this call near the middle school of a suspicious subject, and this is when he drove up and located McClintock. And this is uh Parsons, Officer Parsons. So as he approached McClintock, he got out of his car and he walks over to him on foot and he asks him to take a seat. And McClintock, who's pacing, says to him that he didn't have to take a seat.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

You know, know your rights.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah. Well he starts repeating in Jesus' name I pray forever, amen. Over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

And as the officer approaches him, he suddenly takes off running. So the officer started chasing after him, basically in planning at this point to arrest him for resisting arrest, uh, but he lost sight of him and radioed to his colleagues to quote, just let him go if they saw him and he ran off again.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Right. He wasn't really resisting arrest if you never said you were trying to arrest him.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Agreed. So another officer radioed back saying that she copied a female officer saying, copy, like I heard you, and she turned, but then she turns into the lot and she turns on her body cam when she sees him directly in front of her car. Oh so McClintock starts approaching her car, and she is in the act of getting out of it when he suddenly kind of comes at her. So she's reaching for her gun, and a physical altercation happens between the two of them. Oh no. They literally start wrestling for the gun, and she ends up on the ground, and he is able to take her gun out of her hands, and it's and he's standing over her, and the audio from her body cam footage is her yelling out to people, he's got my gun, he's got my gun. Now he's really scary. He is standing over this officer with the gun in his hand, and he is repeating, You're saved in Jesus' name forever. So she starts backing away, asking him, Don't shoot me, don't shoot me, please. But he starts pointing the gun at her. Oh no. It's at this point that a male officer comes running towards this commotion. Now it's not clear if this is the same officer or a different one because this is happening not too far from the police station. Because later they're gonna say that this female officer and this male officer were never identified, so I'm left believing that it's not the guy from the beginning. Gotcha. So he comes running over for the commotion, and at this point, the because of the distraction of him, McClintock looks away, and the female officer takes cover behind a nearby vehicle, which in the body cam footage looks like a UPS truck or a post office truck. And the male officer is demanding that McClintock put the gun down. McClintock refuses to listen to him, and he gets in the driver's seat of the female officer's patrol car. Oh no. And as he's closing the door and about to drive away, the male officer makes a decision and he fires multiple shots into the vehicle. Oh. It is unclear how many times McClintock was shot because they never reported that exact number.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I don't think he should have been shooting.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

First responders arrived on the scene and they were able to take McClintock out, and they started doing CPR and first aid services on him, but he was pronounced dead soon after.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

CPR ain't gonna do much to a gunshot wound.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Fountain Valley Police Chief Rod Cox. Horrible name, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Like the worst name possible.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Rod Cox. That sounds like a porn star name. It really does. He said the investigation into the shooting remains active to this day and could take a year to conclude since it involved officers. Again, neither of these two officers have been identified publicly, but Jeffrey Alpert, an expert on deadly force and a professor at the University of South Carolina, said that it was extremely rare for a suspect to get a hold of an officer's gun. He says he's not sure it is, yeah. He says he's not sure that the female officer should have taken her gun out of the holster upon being approached that way, especially because she was doing it while getting out of her vehicle, which left her in a very vulnerable situation.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Right. And I guess without seeing what way he was approaching her, it's hard to say.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Well, I saw her body cam footage, and she is literally getting out of the vehicle while drawing the weapon, and he's on her quick. He's a fat he was a fast guy, and he had his hands on her gun even before I think both her legs were out of the car, which is why she ended up on the ground so quickly. It was it was crazy to watch. But basically, they're investigating it because now they're trying to figure out like why did the male officer shoot the shoot the shoot McClintock in the car?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Like right, it doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

He wasn't shooting at anybody, but the vehicle itself is a weapon and he's about to drive away in it.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So there's a little stealing a car. Why is that punishable by death?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Because he just stole an officer's weapon as well. I I agree with you again, not punishable by death. But I again, this is one of those, this is why we're doing the police cases right now.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Right. It's an interesting where it's like, was it a bad choice? Yes. Is it a crime? Yes, should there be consequences? Yes. Uh, should it have been killed? Again, absolutely the fuck not.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

But again, just I'm trying to imagine being in a situation as a police officer where a guy he was holding a gun at her, he took her weapon, and he's telling her she's saved by Jesus, and he's about to get into her car and drive away. That is a danger to the community.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Sure. But that's again not a crime punishable by death.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

But again, I we I mean, yes, I agree, but maybe I mean he maybe should have shot in ways that weren't fatal.

unknown 10:55

Right?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

He will he should have shot at the tires.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

That wouldn't stop the vehicle. He can still drive on flat tires.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Right. So slow it down, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, but again, it's hard to know. And this guy could have shot back. He is armed and he's behaving erratically. Again, I'm trying not to defend it too much. I'm really playing devil devil's advocate. But it's the whole thing's weird. I don't know. It's weird to me, but I don't know where I stand. I do think they were kind of justified, but I agree with you, they should have taken a non-lethal action.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

But and of all the moments during this altercation, like, I don't think that made sense. Like, when he was actively sh pointing his gun at someone, I still don't know if that's the right move, but that was when he was at most direct danger, like to somebody.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Right, agreed. Because he did say put the gun down.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

The police station is just a guy in a stolen car. Okay, cool, we're gonna go chase down that car.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

But it's a guy with a cop's gun in a cop's car. I don't know. I I mean I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I don't care whose car it is or whose gun it is, man. He did, I mean, he assaulted a police officer, he stole a gun. Like, you should certainly face consequences for that, but I I agree.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

It's not it's not worth putting him to death for. But I'm also not certain the officer meant to put him to death.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

You know, it's fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

It's important that someone with that power knows better.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Right, knows better than to do that. I mean, if this was if this is a perpetrator doing that with a gun, oops, oops, I didn't mean to kill them with the gun.

unknown 12:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

That's exactly what we'd be saying.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Agreed. Agreed. So, yeah, so that's the first case, very short one. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Well, I look forward to seeing what the outcome is. I know it's just gonna be the no consequences.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yeah, I don't think there's gonna be consequences. I think they would have made that decision by now, and that's why they're not publicly saying it yet.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Right. If it was even publicly said, we would have known if they were like suspended.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah, they're right now they haven't even identified them. So I don't think anything's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah. Right. Congrats. Cops murdering another civilian. Great.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Just wait, we got two more to go. Great. You'll be less angry at these, I think, but here we go. All right. All right.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Well, you know what? I'm glad we're at least here and we're calling it what it is, which is murder.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Agreed. That's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

And exactly some people will say it's like whatever in the line of duty or like a casual. No, this is murder. This is murder.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

And I and the reason I'm not calling it whatever in the line of duty was because you're 100% right. There were other options. I just I just don't know. I again I stand by. I wasn't there in that situation. I may have also pulled the trigger. And I would expect to face consequences for it. That's all.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

So not if you were coped. Right. All right. Second case. A deputy on June 23rd, 2025. So these are both recent cases, which is cool. Uh, he pulled over a woman named Rihanna Harden because she ran a stop sign and nearly hit a car in doing so. Oh dear. So the officer, after pulling her over, which by the way, she pulled into what looked like somebody's driveway, like right up against a try, like as the headlights facing a tree, which I thought was really weird. And I don't know if she lived there or not, because that was sort of the impression I got. But he pulls her over, and as he's walking up to the car, he notices that it's like full of clothing and junk, and it looks like she's living out of the car, right? And again, all this is on body cam footage.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

So it sounds like, yeah, that she's living out of her car.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah, that's the impression I got. So Hardin initially gave the deputy a false name. She he asked her for her ID, and she's like, I don't have my ID on me. My name is this. And then she pulls out her phone and she shows him a photo of her quote unquote ID. And he's looking at it and he's like, That doesn't even look like you. Let's try this again. So at this point he's got a Yeah, like Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Did you do that? Like ask someone for their social and look it up.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Like Well, he he takes her socialism. I I have mine memorized, but that's the military, I think.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

But uh so Yeah, I know mine, but some people don't, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah. So he takes her out of the car and he's sitting at the back of the car, and she's trying to like give him some bullshit reason as to why she gave him the wrong name, and he's like, Look, let's cut the shit. Tell me what your name is. Like, and he looks her up, and her real name was Rihanna Harden, and he was able to figure out that she was driving on a suspended license, and she's a recently released convicted felon.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Bad moves, Queen, but that's probably why she has a suspended license.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Right. So he then starts searching her, and he finds that she is in possession of controlled substances. So, yeah. So again, convicted felon, driving without a license, drugs on your person, not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Not the smartest of moves.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

So at this point, the officer walks back to the vehicle, and he is surprised when he realizes that there's a man in the passenger seat that's just waking up. Oh, been there the whole time. He's been there the whole time. He literally even says to him, Have you been there the entire time? And he's like shocked because that's how trashed her fucking car is.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, it's just like it could have been a pile of junk, but it's a man.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

It's a dude sleeping in the passenger seat that was like fully laid back, you know. So the cop takes him out, he asks him a couple questions, but this guy, he's normal. He's there's nothing out of the ordinary about this guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

He's just a passenger.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

He's just a passenger in this woman's crazy night. So the deputy returns to Harden, and before cuffing her, with her hands behind her back, he pats her down one more time. And so he puts her in the backseat. And once she's in there, he walks back and he's radioing people, whatever, other officers, and she takes a visor off that she was wearing and she uses it to try to obscure the camera that's like facing the back seat. She's sitting there, she got her hand out of one of the cuffs, and she's literally she's using this visor to try to obscure everything that's so that you can't see it on the camera. And while she's doing this, she's also using her hand to slide the center plexiglass, the that part the partition between the front and back seats. She's sliding it around to make a space in between the front seat and the back seat. Just enough, like a gap.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

It's weird. So at one point.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, it sounds like she's uh been back there a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, a couple times. So at one point, before they leave, the officer checks on her again and realizes her her hands are free. So he he takes her out and re-cuffs her and puts her back in. And he pats her down one more time. So so now he's got her in the car and he's driving her to the Marion County jail, and Harden can be seen fidgeting around the back seat again. And she does this for several several minutes. She has somehow managed to get her hand free again.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Damn, this guy's bad at handcuffing.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

And she retrieved a small revolver that she had hidden inside her vagina.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

My mouth is gaping. Girl, how? I have so many questions.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, yeah. There's literally a scene later on in all this, you know, body cam footage where two cops are talking and one cop literally says to another, yeah, she hid it in the one place he can't check.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah. Oh my god, that's nuts.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I don't even want to know how uncomfortable that must have been.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I can't imagine. So And how terrifying. Oh my god, a loaded gun?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah, it right. Hey, you got me. I don't even want to know. I don't want to know. I just don't.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Man. Oh. So yeah, me neither.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

At approximately 2 15 a.m., she shifted in her seat, tilted her head slightly, and then with one wrist still handcuffed, she attempted to push the gun through the gap in the partition, and she started firing.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Now this deputy kind of screamed and moved to avoid being shot, and he ended up crashing the vehicle into a utility pole.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

You know, yeah. It happens.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

And then as she fires shot at in a moving vehicle. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Like, I'm getting out of this fucking car. So literally he's exiting the car as she shoots again, and he pulls out his gun and returns fire. When the gunfire stops, Harden can be seen on the camera footage trying to kick out the glass of the rear window. Now, he's he's just calling for backup. He's hiding behind something. She's not getting out of the car, so he's waiting for backup to arrive. And when they arrive, they're able to handcuff her because they found out because when they walked up, she had already thrown the gun away from her so that they wouldn't shoot at her anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

So they get her out of the car, and they're they're while they're doing this and they're arresting her, they're looking at the deputy, and they realize that the first bullet she fired grazed his right cheek just below his right eye.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Talk about like divine intervention.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, that's real fucking close.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Because it turned out the first shot, the gun misfired. So it probably should have hit him right in the head. Now, this is the weird thing. I know guns well. I worked with guns and explosives and ammunition in the military. Basically, if you have anything in that barrel, it can affect how the bullet comes out of that barrel. And considering where she hit it, I'm just saying, chances are that's what caused the that's what saved this guy's life.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

The coochie contamination in the barrel.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yes, the coochie contamination. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Oh my goodness gracious. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yep. Now, in subsequent interviews, Harden would go on to say that she had. A rough upbringing and an inherent distrust of law enforcement. And that was part of why she behaved the way she did. She also said that she was unhappy with this officer because of how arrogant he behaved and how he treated her during this traffic stop. He also she also said that he did not answer her questions to her satisfaction.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Oh, is that so?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yep. And she noted that she didn't like that he'd searched her despite the fact that he was a man.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Well, girl, he clearly didn't search it thorough enough.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Right? Exactly. It's going to be because of someone like this that women might get things might get a little less comfortable for them in the future in terms of searches. Yeah. Because let's be honest, I don't know what the stats are of women officers versus male officers, but I doubt it's even 50-50. So the likelihood of a woman being have having to be searched by a man is gonna have to be pretty high.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

And if something like this in the good it's like in the best case, you would hope they could call for backup.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Right, but they might not be able to. But either way, this woman's probably gonna make it worse for people in Florida.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

So Yeah. As if they need it to be worse.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Right. So in addition to being charged with attempted murder, Hardin pled no contest to counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of methamphetamines, possession of cannabis, possession of other drug paraphernalia, as well as providing a false name to law enforcement.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

You know, she did do those things.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

She did do all of those things. She was sentenced to 40 years in a state correctional facility for her attack. And because of her no contest plea, the judge actually lowered the charge to second-degree attempted murder instead of first degree attempted murder.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah. 40 years for second-degree attempted murder is pretty extreme, but considering she was already a convicted felon, I'm not surprised she got that.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Well, and she was attempting to murder a cop. So of course she's gonna get a worse punishment.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

So that one's the because uh obviously cop lives matter more than civilian lives, as we as we all know.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

As we've all seen a hundred times, yep.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

So that's the that's the only one we have, but I have to say it.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yeah, it's the only one we have where nobody died, so there's that.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I'm glad nobody died. That's a that's the best case. And girl, what a dumbass.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I just couldn't leave it out because of where she hid the gun.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Oh no, that's that's fucking crazy. I I did need to know that that was possible. That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I'm just again, I I don't want to know how how much pain and discomfort she was in trying to walk however far she had to walk from the car. I'm assuming she hit it in the car before he got her out of the car.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Um unless she was driving around like that.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

That's what I mean. Like, unless that's how she always carries it, right? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Um, but the um Yeah, just googling how small a revolver revolver could be.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Right. A 22 would be the smallest pistol. It doesn't say what type of pistol it was, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

But I see some pretty little ones.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah, there's some small ones. But a revolver.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

I'm see I see how this could fit, but no way it could fit comfortably.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Well, again, I don't think most that's my evaluation. I don't think most things go into there comfortably. Let's be honest.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Not things with that many pointy edges.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

That's very that's what I'm saying. It's fucking weird. All right.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

You know, ask any ER doctor, they'll tell you what people put in places they shouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

You know what? You're that's a hundred percent true. I remember watching one of my best friends as a kid get Skittles stuck up his nostrils.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

So you know, the human need to put things in holes has no limit.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

I you know, I just remember watching him struggle to get it out. That was the funniest part for me.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, that's uh horrify horrifying, I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yeah, it was hilarious from my end.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Right, no, it was hilarious for you, but I'm just thinking about like not being able to breathe skittles up my nose.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

I did that. He did get it out, so that was that was good. He didn't have to go to the hospital. Good. All right. So last one. On Monday, May 16th, 2022, police received a call about a suspicious vehicle, a black Chrysler with fake license plates, blocking a driveway in Benton, Kentucky. Body cam footage from a deputy showed a rifle in the back seat, which would later be confirmed as stolen. So the police eventually tow this vehicle away. But as law enforcement officers are looking at it, one of them that's involved believes that the key to this car was being held by 30-year-old Gary Rowland, and that this guy was most likely in the apartment where that car was parked. Now, Roland was wanted on multiple active warrants and had an ex and had an extensive, extensive criminal history. Callaway County Chief Deputy Jody Cash had been tracking Roland's phone as part of a federal narcotics investigation. So while they're outside this place, he warns everybody that Roland had told said they had told him at some point in the past that Roland himself would rather have a shootout with police than go back to prison. So as Oh dear. Yeah. So they they this guy's been tracking his phone. He's pretty sure he's here. They had this vehicle with the rifle, stolen plates, fake plates, whatever. And they're going in to get him. So as a result, the police were ready for a standoff and possibly a shootout. But luckily, this never happened. Good. They were able to get into the building and arrest Gary Rowland that day, and they took him into custody with no issues. Which kind of threw everybody off. Yeah, took it that threw everybody off. So again, a lot of this I watched on police body cam footage, and I think we mentioned it in a previous episode that I was watching a lot of that as part of my research, which is what led me to these three cases. So it's funny how that all works out. But on this body cam footage, you can see as they search him and they kind of sweep his waistline and they cuff his hands behind his back. Another officer, as they're bringing him out to the vehicles outside, they also are seen searching his back and stomach, and they saw what looked like a bulge in his sweatpants pocket.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

So the officer in your body, you're just happy to see me.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

That's my pistol officer.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, alright, if that's what you call it.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

So this officer reaches into his pocket and he removes a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. So reasonable bulge. Right. So again, they're escorting him out to the car, and Roland made a comment that if he had known the police was cut that were coming, he would have shot them.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

We did know that.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Correct. But this time he's he's basically telling him straight up. So at this point, as they're putting him in the car, no one searches him again. They just put him in the car. So the plan initially was to take him straight to the jail after his arrest, but he told these deputies that he wanted to talk to them. He knew he was willing to give up names of local drug dealers. So instead of bringing him straight to jail, they decide to bring him to the police station where they can interview him. And as they get there, they examine the contents of his pockets.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Keep in mind that they, to my knowledge, and I might get to it later, but they do not do a very thorough search of this man.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

What an interesting choice for them to make.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Well, he's cooperating. You know, he's Yeah, I'm so basically as they search his pockets, they find some scratch tickets. And again, they do like swipe their hands across his waistband, but that's the best you get. So they're sitting there shooting the shit with him as they walk into this interrogation room. And Roland asks if he can speak to his girlfriend. And a deputy named Bowman replies, I don't know about your girl, but I can definitely get you something to drink.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

It's a weird, this whole thing is weird.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

It is weird.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

So he's in the he's in this interrogation room with deputies Bowman and Cash, the guy, the the head and the one in charge of the federal drug investigation. And despite the fact that he is now in custody, he is sitting there with two weapons on him.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

A gun and a knife.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

And in his butt?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

No, they're in his pants. They just keep missing them.

unknown 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Wow, these guys are bad. How do you miss that? I guess it's I've now seen that there are teeny tiny guns. But also like, come on, you guys.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

They've literally missed them each time.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

They didn't even put them through a metal detector?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Well, they're not processing him for arrest yet. That's part of the problem.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah. So there's like a break in protocol here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

He's sitting in silence with his hands cuffed behind his back, and then within a minute with a few minutes, the door opens, and Cash and Bowman walk back in. Now Bowman tells Cash that Roland wants to talk, but he wants to have a cigarette and to call his girlfriend. In the interrogation room, Bowman asks Cash to grab the handcuff key. And Cash just kind of tosses it to him. And Bowman walks over and he removes the handcuffs from Roland so that his hands can come around to his front and he cuffs his hands in front of him instead of behind his back.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Okay, but now he's gonna grab his gun.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Well, Cash is seen going in and out of the room, grabbing drinks and a cigarette for Roland, and then they all go outside so he can have his smoke. Okay? So they're outside. And before they go out, this is important to note Roland is wearing sweatpants, and both legs are all the way down to his ankles when they leave the first time. Then when they go off for that cigarette.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

He's pantsless.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

No, no, his his pants are up, his waist is at his waist, but the cuffs at his ankles are all the way down at his ankles. He's wearing them like normal.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Okay, like yeah. He's wearing them normal style.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Normal sweatpants wearer. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Yes. So as they go outside, Bowman tells Roland, we're going to step out front. Do not try to run. And Roland says, okay. So one of the things that Roland does while they're out there having a cigarette is he like bends down and like he's when he puts the cigarette out, he's bent down on the ground for a little bit. He's like scrouched. And he's finishing it up and whatever. But they don't think much of it because he's standing, he's still right there. And when they go back inside, one of his pant legs is pulled all the way up to his knee.

unknown 33:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

So you got one where the leg goes down like normal, and now the other one is all the way up to his knee. But nobody notices anything untoward about that for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

I don't know. Maybe I had to scratch his leg. I I wouldn't I don't know if I'd think much of it either.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

And again, I think part of the reason they are too relax so relaxed about this is because they're sweatpants. They you can't really hide much in sweatpants. So they probably aren't really thinking anything is that he could be hiding something.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

So after the smoke break, the three men are in that room and they're talking for a bit longer. And after a while, Roland says, Hey, I could really use another smoke, you know. I'll continue cooperating with you guys. So once again, they make this little pilgrimage outside.

unknown 34:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Now Roland is standing there smoking, and Bowman and Cash are on either side of him. Surveillance cameras at the sheriff's office should have captured everything that's about to happen, but they didn't work.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Oh, dude, that's not good.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

It's fucking bullshit. If the cameras don't even work at the police station, yeah, I'm lost.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Right, for real.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

So the trio are standing there. And another deputy named Brandon Little pulls up, parks his car, and he walks towards the front door. He had barely entered when Roland suddenly took out the pistol he'd been hiding and fired a shot.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Jody Cash went down, and Detective Bowman started running as Roland moved into a shooting position. Meaning he's probably crouching and balancing his elbow on his knee to give him more stability. Roland is firing at Bowman, and Bowman trips on the sidewalk. He likes falls. Oh no. And Deputy Little comes running out of the building, gun drawn, and starts engaging Roland, firing at him as he's yelling verbal commands of drop the gun and don't move. Now Roland tried to get up and run, and he's trying to run towards the roadway as he's pointing his gun at Little. But Little and Bowman are returning fire, and Roland fell in the parking lot near the curb. However, Roland stands back up and tries to flee, but he fought starts falling again in the grass. And because at this point, no one's letting him get away. They're all shooting at him. Right. So at this point, other deputies are involved and they're all covering each other as they move towards Roland, who's laying on the ground. He's still holding the gun in his hand. And deputies are quick to take it away and toss it a good distance from him and call emergency dispatch. Jody Cash was dead at the scene. Oh no. And Roland was being held on the ground, injured from multiple gunshot wounds, and officers were saying out loud, on body cam footage, I hope it fucking hurts. Which, if you shot my friend, yeah, I'd probably be saying the same thing. Right. So first responders take Roland into an ambulance where they find the knife hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Okay, how the fuck did they miss that, dude?

SPEAKER_00 37:20

They only ever swiped his waist and his back. Fucking weird. So autopsy should be autopsy showed that Cash was fatally shot in the chest, and Roland was shot 13 times, including a fatal shot to the head. Okay. Yeah. So the Marshall County Sheriff's Office made an made improvements that included adding five new surveillance cameras to the facility, but no criminal charges were ever filed against any law enforcement agency or officer involved.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah, I mean, he he did it to himself. Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

He was he killed someone.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

He was an active shooter. Yeah, yeah. Like that, you you brought it on yourself. You know, I don't feel bad about this. Not the way we did for OCN or Oshan or whatever his name was.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

So in May of 2023, Bowman and his wife, along with Cash's widow, filed a civil suit against the Marshall County and Calamut County Sheriff's Offices, as well as every member who had had hands-on Roland from the time of his arrest to the moment he entered that interrogation room. Because nobody did a proper search.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Right. But including them.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Agreed. I mean, these are this is Bowman, his wife, and Cash that are filing the lawsuit. Bowman, he wasn't there, and I don't think Bowman was there until they got him to the interrogation room. Until they were bringing him into the building. Although I do agree he did one search. I'm sorry, when they took away his scratch tickets.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Right. So he should have been named in the lawsuit, not the not the what is it, plaintiff?

SPEAKER_00 39:02

The the defend defendant. I don't know. Yeah, oh you're saying he shouldn't have been a plaintiff.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Yeah, he should have been a defendant.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Right, I agree. But the suit accuses them of not doing adequate searches, which obviously. But as of the most recent article I could find, they are still working out the details of a possible settlement. So it's been almost three years now, and they still haven't worked out a settlement. So they probably never will.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

I definitely feel bad for the guy's family.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah. But yeah, that's our case of uh that's our most recent bite-sized murder case for God knows how long.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Well, yeah. It was a spicy one today.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

It was interesting. I wanted to do something different, obviously. And we haven't done too many police involved things like this before, so I was like, let's have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yeah, interesting to interesting to think about, you know, what's what is that isn't justified, and you know, what's reasonable use of force and right, and that's why I Yeah, I'm very interested. I feel like the first case, I'm very interested to see how that turns out, because there should be consequences, and I don't feel confident that there will be.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

No, I agree. I don't think there will be. And it was California, so maybe, I mean, that's more of a like, I don't know. I that I think that's a state that would maybe hold their police officers more accountable, but then again, we've seen what's happened here in Massachusetts, so maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Right. And we've also seen, I mean, like, the LAPD is like the most corrupt police organization that's ever existed, so that's California too.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah, that's true, and it's not that far from where this happened.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, exactly. So I don't know if I have much faith.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

No, you're right. I take that back. Yeah, but I I I still I laughed because I knew I was gonna sandwich the one with the woman and the gun in the middle because I was like, this is just so fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah, yeah. That one's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Uh, but everything about watching that video of finding the guy in the passenger seat, the whole time I'm like, I was wondering what it was gonna come to, and it at no point did I think she was gonna pull a gun from where she did.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Yeah, I don't think anyone ever expects that.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Yeah, that was crazy. Although, and I although you're you're like, you'd be afraid it would go off while I was in there. It's unlikely to go off, but you're right.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

I can't under I can't think of the mechanism by which it would go off, but I also don't know much about guns.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

So so good news is you'd never put it there.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Yeah, the great news is I'm never gonna do that. Yeah, um, so I don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Crazy, absolutely crazy. I love it. Yeah, that's what that's why I love true crime, it's so fucking unreal. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

It is, it's it's you know, truth's stranger than fiction a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

It's so much fun. I it is I I almost hate to say it that way, but I don't. I love every minute of it. So call me crazy.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

It definitely is definitely fascinating, and it definitely changes your perspective on what is possible in the world and what things you dismiss as ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

That's true. Because yeah, if you had seen that in a movie, you'd be like bullshit, but now here we are.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Right. And it's like, no, actually, shit's crazy, or like even last week's episode with you know, oh yeah, the woman running into the street. Like, we wouldn't have believed that.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

No, like I said, I saw the video footage initially and thought it was bullshit, and then when it showed up again, and I was like, no, that was real, and then she went on to murder somebody. Fucking crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Fucking nuts.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

I love it. All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Once again, I am Janice Dead.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

And I'm Joyce Dead.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

And we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Bye.