Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Official Hector Bravo Podcast
Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Antonio - From Termination to Redemption: Overcoming Adversity in Law Enforcement
Antonio, a former police officer, shares a harrowing yet enlightening story of his abrupt fall from grace. After a domestic violence call leads to an investigative spiral questioning his integrity, he reflects on the challenges of law enforcement, the emotional toll of wrongful termination, and the resilience required to move forward.
• An early interest in law enforcement and career aspirations
• First days in the police academy and experiences on patrol
• The dangers of responding to domestic violence calls
• Investigative challenges leading to accusations of dishonesty
• Emotional and psychological struggles following wrongful termination
• The importance of resilience and support in overcoming adversity
Hector Bravo. Unhinged Chaos is now in session.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to our channel Warriors. We are still growing. Today, we have a special guest by the name of Antonio. This guy was an El Centro police officer man. His career did not end the way he would have liked to, and we're going to dive into exactly what transpired and led up to that. What's up, antonio?
Speaker 1:what's up, man? Good, good, it's good to meet you, man. Likewise, dude. How was your drive over here? It was good. No traffic, that's good bro. Maybe the later traffic will be a little bad, but for sure, so let's jump right into it, man, yeah you said you were born in Brawley. I was born in Brawley November of 92. Lived in Mexicali probably six months before my parents bought a house in Calexico and my mom's house is still there to this day.
Speaker 2:So you were born in Brawley, moved to Mexicali and then ended up landing in Calexico.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then that's where you went through your schooling. No, actually, my mom used to work for the county of education in like Imperial County and then when I started kindergarten, I went to Montessori. It's off of Clark and right before the overpass and I ate on Clark Street. Yeah, yeah, went there. And then I went to Meadows Union School District out in closer to Hopeville, okay, after that Southwest. High School, you were all over the Imperial Valley.
Speaker 2:Man All over the place, bro, fucking hot down there. Huh, it is, bro.
Speaker 1:So at that point you were going through your schooling, did you have the idea that you wanted to be a cop? Nah, man, actually when I was young uh, I mean, obviously I feel like every kid likes the police officers, the firefighters, stuff like that but somewhere during like high school I remember I was thinking about like nursing or doctor, you know, but I've never been much of a school guy, so I was like no yeah you.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you stayed out of trouble. You seem like a squared away kid, bro.
Speaker 1:I stayed out of trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you kind of probably have to. You want to be a cop?
Speaker 1:yep, so I mean I got my few run-ins, you know like not not gonna lie when I was like 18, I did little crazy stuff, but what's up?
Speaker 2:meow, meows, or across the border, or uh, no man I was actually.
Speaker 1:I could have been and a full disclosure could have been charged with drunk in public, but, you know, did me a favor. They were there, dude, you know, but it was I get it dude.
Speaker 2:So at what point did you get that idea that you want to be a cop?
Speaker 1:I was like 18 man. I was 18. I was in college for something completely different.
Speaker 2:I was in culinary art school, believe it or not damn now your idea of cops, because to me, dude, the cops in the imperial valley are different than the cops in bigger cities such as san diego or la um. It just seems like up here they're way more cool, bro, because they got a lot going on. Yeah, they don't got the time to. You know? Harass from my opinion. Was that your example of a cop that you wanted to be, or would you watch it from the TV and stuff?
Speaker 1:It was actually probably. Yeah, first like TV. And then when I was 18, I started doing ride-alongs at the Calexico Police Department. That's cool. And then the first officer I went on a ride-along with super cool, and I was like, hey, man, I could probably do this. I think I can, but I was only 18, you know. So I had to wait, Did you like adrenaline?
Speaker 2:Do you like adrenaline?
Speaker 1:Do you like action?
Speaker 2:and stuff. I have to, you have to. Yeah, don't ask my wife. That's the worst kind bro. I really like your style already, dude. Thanks man. So how old were you when you applied?
Speaker 1:And what agency? El Centro, el Centro PD. I think I was just over. I had just turned 20, I believe, because I remember taking the test like the Pellet B. I don't know what it's called now I think they changed it, but the written exam back then was called the Pellet B. How was that? Actually, it wasn't that bad. I remember I was nervous for it, but it's really a lot of common sense, man. It's not crazy. And lo and behold, I passed.
Speaker 2:And then what happens? They schedule a physical examination afterwards.
Speaker 1:Yes, right afterwards you got to do a jump over a fence. Jump over a fence, drag a dummy, all that stuff. Run a. It should be like a mile and a half, because that's the state requirement, but I think they only made us run like a half mile and they just if you're going on pace for a good mile and a half, that's good enough for them.
Speaker 2:So, as you're going through this process, bro because I want to walk into the mindset Right Are you excited, are you happy that you're passing these exams that are being put in front of you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, because in all honesty a lot of people are like, hey, man, don't expect to get hired right away. You're young, you know, some people's maturity levels are higher than yours. So my mentality was like, okay, I'll use it as experience. If I don't get hired on, then I'll try again later on, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good dude. So written exam, poly psychological exam too. How about polygraph?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah that one too. They did a polygraph on you they sent us up to San Diego. Actually, it was myself and another, another female officer who got hired with me. Was that? Yeah, man? How was that? How was that bro? Were they asking weird questions? Did you feel nervous? Yeah, because you're literally like you can't move. They're like, if you take a deep breath, they're like, no, you can't do that. I'm like, dude, I take deep breaths all the time. You know what do you mean?
Speaker 1:I can't do that, but you're like, you're just here and sorry if I go to spanish man all right go ahead, talk spanish freaking bilingual, we're in california yeah, from the valley most of all you know, watch out when trump gets an office. So we're like sitting, I'm sitting down and this is, you know, and I really honestly thought I had failed it, dude, because why? Because I was just like nervous, I was like I can't move, I'm like if I moved a little too much. But no man, I passed past psychological and I had a friend.
Speaker 2:he did sandy, or he did. He applied for, uh, imperial county sheriff. They asked him some weird do you ever have sex with animals? Yes, did they ask that? Yeah, bestiality, straight up, dude. Wow, all right, just wanted the viewers to understand what happens in polygraph.
Speaker 1:Be honest and say yes if you have all right yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that a disqualifying? I don't know, man.
Speaker 1:I don't have experience in that area.
Speaker 2:You sure can, officer, bro. So uh, so there's that dude. You are just passing with flying colors, bro. What about the interview? Is that how? The one of the final stages?
Speaker 1:yeah, the panel interview um it's a panel interview yes, it's a. Um. Well, it's funny because, being from el centro, or actually from clexico, but I went to school in el centro, um, the panel is is composed of I think it was like the HR manager at the time, a detective at the time just people from the police department, and one of them was the SRO. When I was in high school, the SRO is the school resource officer.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So he was at Southwest High School when I was there. Did he remember you? He did Well, that's cool, yeah, yeah, not high school when I was there. Did he remember you? He did Well, that's cool yeah yeah, not because of bad stuff, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so that one was interesting. And I have to say by that time I had already taken some courses at IVC, the Imperial Valley College for Criminal Justice. Yeah, so I already knew what to expect. One of the teachers there, one of my teachers there was already a police officer there. My teachers there was already a police officer there. So he kind of coached me for the interview. So I was, I was good and and honestly I do have to give him a lot of credit for passing- the chief wasn't on any type of panel or interview or anything.
Speaker 1:I think that was just the final interview for the chief you interviewed, final with the chief. He makes the final decision, he makes the call.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know anything about that. What kind of questions are asked For the panel you said with the final with the chief.
Speaker 1:Oh, the final with the chief. It's mostly like to get to know you personally, like more face-to-face, because at that point he's taking his background investigator's word for everything, right? So he just kind of wants to just to see who this candidate is, candidate is, and put the seal on it.
Speaker 2:That makes sense and how long was your process from the time you applied to the time you got hired on?
Speaker 1:I want to say I applied like I turned in my paperwork in november of 2012 and april of 2013. I was getting sworn in as a police recruit. I'm not good at math, bro. Bro, how long was that?
Speaker 2:December, january, february, march, five months, five months, all right, five months, that's pretty fast, dude. Was El Centro PD hiring at that time like a mass hiring, or were they not hiring?
Speaker 1:No, but I got lucky because at that time they would only take people like laterals. Okay, so the difference is a lateral already has their post-certification Right, a recruit they're going to it's basically a scholarship dude. They put me through the whole thing and they paid for everything. Plus they paid, they gave me a paycheck.
Speaker 2:This is interesting, bro, because I know how the story ends yeah. This is interesting. That's crazy, dude. So there was two people that got hired you and a female. She was a brand new cadet, also not a lateral Brand new cadet. Yeah, okay, so El Centro PD hires you brand new lateral. That means they're forking over money to send you to the academy, and you said the academy was up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here at the Miramar College, the San Diego Public Safety Institute.
Speaker 2:How excited were you when you got the call or the letter that you got hired on. Was it a call? Was it?
Speaker 1:a letter. It was a call to come into the police department. They're like hey man, you're it, it's you, and I'm not going to say her name. But uh, this other lady you're good to go, let's go. So we were at the police department maybe for like two weeks before the academy. How did you feel when you got hired on? I was excited, man. I couldn't believe it. You know, I couldn't believe it. I uh, I've always been like, ever since, uh, even though I didn't know my whole life, I was gonna be a police officer, like I've always liked helping people and I know it sounds corny and every police officer's gonna say I'm here to protect and serve.
Speaker 2:But no, I mean, I was here for it.
Speaker 1:Dude, you know, like I, I didn't know what I was into yet, but I'm telling you, I'm good at reading people, bro, I could read you.
Speaker 2:You have a good heart, dude, right off the top. Appreciate it, man. So you go to this academy, man. How was that dude? How was it physically and how was it mentally? Let me tell you bro.
Speaker 1:I messed up the first day, dude. Well, we messed up. My partner and I are a team. We were staying at a hotel in Miramar, or Mira Mesa, and she woke up late, dude. But I couldn't leave her behind. So it's like F it we're both here, we're both going to be late, so everybody's already in the classroom and here we go. It's like the movies, dude. There's like a staircase leading down. It's in the back corner of the campus of the college and we're late. How late? Maybe 10 minutes, okay, not. How late. Maybe 10 minutes, okay, not too late. But you know, late is late, man, right, and it's like paramilitary training. So there's like drill instructors in your face. As soon as we walked into that classroom, oh man, they were all over us and unfortunately, now we're a target. You know, oh, central PD recruits, you guys are doing this, you guys are going to go back home, you know.
Speaker 1:So when you walked in, were the class in session or they were all standing at attention. We were on.
Speaker 2:Everybody was in their dress blues because we have like the uniform and the only two clowns walking in are myself and my partner. About how many? How many drill sergeants were there?
Speaker 1:like, um, I want to say like, and they're only there for a couple days, maybe a week or so drill sergeants just by themselves, like 10 maybe, and then they all just went towards you too. Uh, only a couple, but there everybody was yelling from all over and then they had us all go outside. Um, I don't sorry, man, I know I keep talking, but um, we're all divided in three sections, so it's a section, b section, c section you don't have to apologize for talking, bro, it's the podcast yeah, but I feel like I keep going, you know yeah um, and then did everybody pay?
Speaker 2:did they make everybody do push-ups or something? I like that. I like mass punishment, bro. Yeah, one screws up, everybody screws.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a team thing exactly now I understand, after the academy, you understand that it's all of you together, nobody at all. You know, correct? So we did that. And then I was young man. You know my immaturity was showing right off the bat. Um, I was 20 years old, I wasn't even 21. So I remember and I'll never forget this man. Honestly, I'm thankful for the officer that was in charge, and I'll say his name. His name is, I heard he's now sergeant accessory with the san diego police department. He helped me grow a lot man. Good dude, he was hard, but I remember I cracked my fingers once when we were supposed to be standing at attention yeah and he looked at me and said, really boom, everybody down, why?
Speaker 2:did you? Why did you crack your fingers when you were supposed to be in the possession of attention?
Speaker 1:just didn't, yeah man, like I said I was, it was. That was the first week too, and I remember him coming up to me if you keep doing this, I'm gonna make you fail. You will not drag this section down. Fair enough, fair enough that was it.
Speaker 2:And then you got. You turned it up um, how about at that time? Did you get exposed to chemical agents? Maybe a taser tear gas? What you got?
Speaker 1:everything yeah, everything was um, there was a, an order to everything. So first it was like you know how it is, man, like it's worse, probably in the military is a lot harder. You were in the military, right? So the first couple weeks is you're gonna weed out the people that are gonna quit right away. Did people quit?
Speaker 1:right, oh yeah I'm telling you there's. I'll send you the link to a video. There's a video on on youtube. I was in the 96th regional academy yeah, hoorah, um, it was raining the first two days straight out of a movie and these drill instructors with their drill instructor.
Speaker 1:Smoky hat, yeah the smoky hat and it's like raining and just like out of a movie. One of the officers says like I asked for it to rain and it rained, Wow, wow, and they had us running in the rain, doing burpees in the rain, getting all wet. Yeah, it's not training if it's not raining, they say so a lot of people were like I'm done, I'm done really no freaking way, dude, fuck, I'll be damned if some rain fucking makes me quit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man and especially with me, I, I very, I'm very much so. I'm like, if you tell me I can't do it, I'm gonna show you I could do it exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm the same way, dude, so I'm not gonna quit well, it's kind of funny because as a cop, you have to work out in the rain like work patrol in the rain. So, yeah, I don't get it. Wow, bro. So do you remember the chemical agents when they pepper sprayed you in the face and that shit sucked for you? Yeah, how about that for you?
Speaker 1:Luckily I had already done it at the IBC.
Speaker 2:At the Academy, at IBC or at the IBC.
Speaker 1:So I was like damn.
Speaker 2:In my head I'm like I got to do straight up like, do like a Z kind of thing in front of you, and then they have you run down, or no, no, they had already had us run down.
Speaker 1:And then they have you fight, they have you cuff somebody up, they have you pat them down, and then you have to go through the same day. You have to go through all the other ones, like the CS gas. In my opinion, I would rather be OC than the CS gas. Absolutely, I just could not. Cs is horrible, dude, terrible. We did not get tased. That was a department-specific training and full disclosure. I said I do not want to get tased, so I said nope.
Speaker 2:You have the option to not get tased and not carry a taser.
Speaker 1:No, I carried it, but you have the option to not get tased. Oh, you do, yeah, at the police department, you do. I don't know that. Yeah, it just it's all department specific, but we did that. And then, um, you have to pass all your shooting and everything um first aid. There's a lot of things like crimes against children, all this stuff what year was this again?
Speaker 2:you said 2013 right 2013 this was before george floyd. This was before George Floyd. This was before Black Lives Matter. This was before the protests All cops are bastard. Acab Before, actually before it went woke, Before America went woke, Before it went woke. So what kind of stuff, if you can recall, was being pushed into your guys' brain from a drill sergeant point? Was it like, hey, you guys are going to be fighting criminals on the street? You better get your shit together? What kind of stuff were they?
Speaker 1:doing. Yeah, like type of like. If you're afraid of me, you're not going to last out there. If you can't handle this flight of stairs, you're not going to run and help your partner when you have a Code 3 call.
Speaker 1:Yeah 1199, god forbid. You hear that call over the radio, that you hear that call over the radio. That's a terrible thing. Um, they just want to know that you're going to be there. You know, and, and it's all kinds of. It's mostly composed of san diego pd and san diego sheriffs, but we had escondido carlsbad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bro, see, that's what I think. Policing should be focused on. Bread and butter, same with the military so they taught us how to fight.
Speaker 1:You know that we would fight them.
Speaker 2:Defensive Defensive tactics Defensive tactics, combatives.
Speaker 1:Combatives, safe forms of cuffing people. I bet you were loving it. I was man. I was. I just, you know, at a young age I never thought I'd be able to do that. You know, I'll take pride in Satan. I was the youngest in the academy. Oh, you were. I was.
Speaker 2:Dude me. Oh, you were, I was dude, you got a. You got a really good break, bro, like they looked out for you, but unfortunately I again I know how the story fucking ends, dude. It's horrible bro that's why that's why I'm building up the crowd right now about how great your experience was, bro, and this is a reality, the reality of unfortunately things. So when you got pinned your badge, how was that day for you? Were you excited? Did people come and visit you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it was my. Well, my parents have been divorced since I was like 16, but they were both there.
Speaker 2:That's cool.
Speaker 1:My mom and my dad. I can't remember who else was here.
Speaker 2:if I'm honest with you, Are they allowed to pin you? Did somebody pin you the badge?
Speaker 1:No, it was one of the officers from there. I think they're like they will only let you get pinned if the other person pinning you is already law enforcement. That makes sense, that's cool. And or military, I believe that's cool. They have military experience. They'll let them pin you. And we got.
Speaker 2:Uh, the ceremony was at the miramar base then, after you graduate from the academy, how much days go by till you start your job?
Speaker 1:they just gave me the weekend off and I went back the next week. I had to move all my stuff down, but by then it was only me. My partner didn't make it through the academy. Move all your stuff down from where From, cause we were put up at a hotel.
Speaker 2:They were paying for the hotel, they were paying for the hotel, they gave us a car, they gave us gas Rental car and a freaking paycheck, bro. You were doing it, man, and why didn't your partner pass, if you could?
Speaker 1:say yeah, yeah, uh, she just failed first aid twice. Dude, you can only first aid.
Speaker 2:Yeah fuck, how hard did it put on a band-aid or a tourniquet?
Speaker 1:bro, it's probably the, the theory part of it that she couldn't do.
Speaker 2:Oh, so um dude, it's not that hard.
Speaker 1:It's not that hard dude but she, you can only fail once. Pack the wound the second time you fail anything, any learning domain, you're done well, how?
Speaker 2:how was your first? I don't want to say how was your first day on the job, just I want you to walk me through is like what's the process? You show up into a formation or not, a formation into a class, the briefings that the sergeants do, or whatever. Okay, what's that?
Speaker 1:like my first day. Uh, when I graduated sorry, the next week I was assigned to like admin admin yeah, so they weren't going to put me out on the streets first. They wanted me to fill out more paperwork your training out of the way yeah, I was gonna.
Speaker 1:if there was a counter call at the front desk of the police department, I would would go with that officer and see how they handled it, start to get experience, sit in in the communication center or dispatch things like that and then briefing it would start at the beginning of each shift. So it was the shifts over there. I don't know if they're still the same. It was either 7 am or 7 pm were the starts.
Speaker 2:They were 12-hour shifts 12-hour shifts.
Speaker 1:They were 12 hour shifts, 12 hour shifts, 12 hour shifts central pd, central pd. I never knew that, dude. Yeah, three on, one off, four on and then three off. No, sorry, three on one week four off, and then you come back to four.
Speaker 2:Three off, it would. That's kind of shitty dude. Maybe the time's off is cool, but I don't know about fucking 12 hours on the clock and then, when they held you over, it was like well, how can they hold you over? How many hours are they holding you over for?
Speaker 1:Well, you can only work a total of 16. But if a mass event happens, you're there freaking hasta que till the wheels fall off bro.
Speaker 2:So how many cops give me an approximate? How many police officers are there in El Centro PD?
Speaker 1:Back then each team had like four or five, if they were lucky, four teams, 20, maybe 20, 25. That's a little bit dude, dude, and I get it, it's. South Central PD but there was a time where it was only. They would divide El Centro into two beats West Beat and the East Beat and they would use 8th Street as a divide 8th?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was about to ask you that question right now.
Speaker 1:So anything on the west beat was assigned to two officers the whole west side of el centro, according to us and then the other east side was two, which is the worst part of el centro it was the east side.
Speaker 1:Back then the east side, north side, centro was pretty bad yeah, well, sorry, the east side of the beat for us, um, north side wasn't as active. I had heard from other veteran officers that it had been really bad before. Yeah, like on, I still remember the names calvary street, north, north fourth street, kind of getting almost into imperial and all that. Those were really bad, but so you seen the movie? End of watch yeah, man love it. I bet you do, bro, is it?
Speaker 2:I watched in the academy you watched it in the academy. That movie didn't come out in 2013,. Did it? Yeah, man, it was out. It's been out for a long time then, yeah, that shit motivate you, or what it did? So is that how? I mean, I'm not. Clearly, it's probably not like a movie, but do you get your weapons? Where do you get your weapons from? How does this Walk me? Having your weapons going, maybe a locker room?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a locker room.
Speaker 2:What do you put in the locker?
Speaker 1:I would keep my gun there Sometimes. What kind of gun was it? It was a H&K 45. That was a department issue 45 caliber 45 caliber. Holy shit, dude, stopping power. Yeah, so we would carry that. I would take my taser home with me so I could charge it at home.
Speaker 2:Even though you had never been tased.
Speaker 1:Even though I'd never been tased, I knew how to aim it. I knew how to pull the trigger. Man, that's all we need. I would take my radio home to charge it at home, but everything else was in there. I would have an extra set of uniforms. My bulletproof vest was in there, so I'd get there 20, 15 minutes before roll call and put everything on. Boom, boom, boom. What was the point of having an extra uniform in there? In case it like ripped during the shift or something like that, I could go change Smart and it happens. One time I got caught up in a fence and you know you got caught up in a fence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chasing somebody, chasing somebody Tweaker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, bro, there's a lot those there, bro, I'm from brawley, bro, you know. Yeah, exactly, dude, so oh shit, so uh, it's probably my favorite interview, bro, I could tell you some crazy shit. Man, it's funny so okay, now holy shit. You said uh h and k 45. What about a long rifle?
Speaker 1:uh, every, every patrol unit, like the cars, had a ar-15 and a shotgun in there. So it was your job to before. You made it loaded and ready to clear it. Look, make sure everything's functioning. Pull the trigger, obviously without anything in it, make sure it's functioning and then have it ready in case you need it did anybody ever have a negligent discharge and shoot a fucking round when they weren't supposed to? Well, uh, it was before my time, but there was a guy who shot his finger off. Sounds about right.
Speaker 2:Was there a sight or anything? An optic on your rifle? No, but now they do.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, but before no, some of them had it. The officers that were also assigned to SWAT were able to carry their MP5s, or whatever they called.
Speaker 2:So 25 approximately cops in the department. How is half of that on SWAT, or a handful of that, like?
Speaker 1:12 of them, maybe 12 of them. Yeah, I might be wrong on the numbers, it might be 30, you know, give or take, just a rough estimate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So would you say half of them are SWAT, or not less than half. No, like about 10, dude, okay, it's not that big of a. Now. Did you know who the SWAT team officers were? Did you know who the SWAT guys were? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what did you think of them?
Speaker 1:I was like dude, these guys are Legit Elite. Yeah, man, their tactics are different. Their Well is higher than the normal officers. It has to be because their qualifications are. The room for failure is a lot smaller than regular officers Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, did you have any aspirations to become SWAT?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny because we'll talk about it later, but when I started my internal affairs investigation, the sergeant that actually was a part of that, he was the one that told me hey, man, start getting ready, you're squared away. He wanted me to try out for it and I wanted to.
Speaker 2:Dude, you would have been good at it, bro. No, but again, things happen for a reason. So I mean just your demeanor man, because it's more to SWAT than just being a big muscle head kicking in doors. Right, you got to be cool, calm and collective, yeah, um, so any incidents that stand out to you.
Speaker 1:You said there was some wild times right there in el centro uh, well, you know what, and uh, I almost didn't make it through field training man. Why? What happened? I was doing good, I was squared away. And then one day I get, I get dispatched with my training officer to and if he hears this he'll know he was so mad at me that night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ramos, he's legit man, that guy before my time. He's been around a long time. He got shot in the face. Man in el centro, no central, damn, he's legit. You need backup. That's somebody you want there for sure. So he's a good training officer, very relaxed until you fucked up, you know. So you get dispatched to somebody who's seen a guy beat the hell out of a girl in front of a motel at 7th and adams, and we're at the station. 7th and adams isn't that far from 12th and main, where, where the police department is. What park is there right there? Adams Park, adams Park, but that's just north of Adams Park, right across there's a I forget what the, the patio motel, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are the ones you can rent by the hour or some shit. Cheap fucking hookers yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:So I get there and the reporting party's saying like, hey, I see him, him, he's in the middle of the parking lot beating the hell out of her. So we get there. And as soon as we get there, we see the guy taking off northbound on the on whatever street that was on foot no on a bike, okay, yeah, there's a lot more bike riders than you'll ever see you're forgetting, bro, I'm from the valley.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fucking, I'm picturing it so he's taking off and I remember we take off like, uh, he turns on Woodward or something like that, from 6th Street eastbound to 5th Street on Woodward and we're going, and then he turns around and he pulls out a revolver and starts waving it in the air. Dude, and I'm going to be honest, dude, I got scared, shitless dude. I slammed the brakes and Ramos looks at me. He's like what the fuck are you doing? He gets out of the car and he draws down. So I get out too. The guy's still going. He's like get back in the car, let's fucking go. Blah, blah, blah. So the guy turns off on 6th Street or 5th Street and when we go in behind him we lose him. That's right, it's 6th Street now that I remember, because Kennedy School is right past those tracks, right there, and we lost him right there, dude. So at that point he doesn't have much time to argue with me.
Speaker 1:We got to find this guy, whatever. Obviously, this whole time we called out he has a gun. He pulled out a gun. He had recognized him from prior police contacts with him. His name was Mark Anthony Ayala. And we lost him, dude. So then we called everybody in, we set up a perimeter and then we walked down in between the railroad tracks and there's a little dirt road and we do like a little, what is it called? Like a little triangle formation, something like that, a wedge. Yeah, there you go. So we go, and then somebody's watching this side, somebody's watching the windows, and we go down and see if we find him, and if we find him, see the gun you know, you got to do what you got to do, couldn't find him.
Speaker 1:We went to an apartment of one of his known associates and he wouldn't let us in. So we knew, you know he's in there, but there's not much you can do, unfortunately, because you didn't see him go in there. So we go in there. I'm sorry. We go back to the police department. I get my ass handed to me.
Speaker 2:Real quick. What about exigent circumstances? Still, you can't. No, because we didn't physically see him. Okay, yeah, yeah, then you'd be violating all kinds of rights.
Speaker 1:The whole case is going to go down the drain if it goes to court If you end up shooting the guy. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Or accidentally shooting somebody else. Yeah, dude, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's so. Then you get back to the police station.
Speaker 1:Your ramos lights you up, bro. Yeah, he's like like that's absolutely not that day. I think it was like the last one of the last days of my week, and every week you get, uh, a review for your. Oh man, that was the worst review I ever got.
Speaker 2:But let me be realistic though, man. That's not an easy call to nah motherfucker waving a revolver. You weren't necessarily wrong for slamming the brakes. What else are you supposed to do?
Speaker 1:Well, if I slam the brakes, I'm a sitting duck. If he turns around and shoots.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't you? I mean realistically, bro, you have less. You made a decision. You made a decision. The decision was to fucking slam on the brakes. Or was he pissed that the dude took off, got away?
Speaker 1:no, I think it's because he had, because he's been in, obviously got shot, he's had to. He's had a couple other yeah um shootings also, so he kind of had more experience than me, so obviously in his mind he was like dude, slam the other pedal next time and, just you know, hit him interesting.
Speaker 2:No, I see it yeah, yeah, yeah, and that would have been 100 justifiable.
Speaker 1:You know, it is what it is. Holy shit dude. So the guy gets lost.
Speaker 1:I go home, I can't sleep you can't sleep because of the adrenaline or because you were feeling, because I was like dude, I missed, I messed up, you know, and I kind of slept a couple hours that day and I went back to work that night. I go back to work that night, I walk into the police department through the back door where we all parked and walked in and there's coffee spilled on the floor and I was like they found them. Dude, they ran out of here and I turned on the radio and they're all in that area where we lost them. Turns out there had been a shooting because they found him and he tried taking a taxi cab driver hostage, took him out why was there coffee on the floor?
Speaker 2:everybody just jumped up and yeah, dude, because that was going to bring me to my next question. El Centro is extremely small. How long does it take for you to go from, get a call and get to a location?
Speaker 1:Oh, dude, this is a good part, I think, of being in a small city like that. If somebody calls for help, you're like minutes away, dude, and minutes could be a long time dude. I've been in fights where I'm like dude, where is everybody, bro? But we have Imperial PD right there too. So there was times where I called for help during a fight and they would show up too dude, imperial PD, imperial PD who do you call your dispatch? I would just call out Like if I get in an active fight with somebody, I would just the code was 1018. Officer needs help immediately. Something's going on, you need backup. You need backup so your partners are coming in. But then at times, Imperial, we were on the same channel, so Imperial PD would hear and they're like boom, send somebody.
Speaker 2:Was there much communication between San Diego PD or Brawley PD, calexico PD, imperial PD and San Diego?
Speaker 1:There was open communication. It would just depend on you If, if it was open communication, it would just depend on you If you wanted to switch the channel on the radio to hear the whole county calls.
Speaker 2:What about Sheriff Highway Patrol or Border Patrol?
Speaker 1:We're all part of the same. It's called the Spillman system, what they used to use. I don't know what they use now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you could open up your filters to see all the calls, which would help you know, like if something's going on nearby in the city, at least you know what you're going to respond to if something hits the fan.
Speaker 2:You know that's very interesting dude. Any other? Oh, okay, okay, we'll kind of maybe transition. Now you mentioned a case you said Samson.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, man, I wasn't involved in this case, but I was already employed at the police department. You were already employed, I was already there, I was already on patrol, you were already employed, I was already there I was already on patrol, so you were working during this big case of this.
Speaker 2:Tell us what that case was about or what the incident.
Speaker 1:To the best of my ability, from the best of your ability, bro.
Speaker 2:don't elaborate or don't. No, you know what I mean, Just from.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a video online that people can see. All you have to do is type in Charles Sampson City of El Centro Police Department and you'll be able to see the video that the judge ordered to be released to the public. Oh, the body-worn camera. The body-worn camera. They pulled this man over. This was the shift before me. I was coming in that following morning to patrol 7 am, so the shift the night before I get there. Anyways, later on, now that I know everything, I guess they pulled this man over. Uh, he was on probation for drugs. He was on probation for drugs, um, and I think they had some inside information, ci information that he uh had drugs with him or in the car or whatever you know. So they pull them over. They're like hey, obviously you're awake, we're going to go do a probation compliance check at your house. It was like midnight, it was cold you know it gets cold sometimes down in the valley Like it was during the winter.
Speaker 1:But when they get there they don't take him into the house and they put him in the patrol unit. Throughout the whole shebang, what they were doing, the search or whatever, they couldn't find anything. So they go back and they bring him in like hey, man, just tell us where the dope is, whatever. And the guy you could tell was like sweating, profusely, shivering stuff like that falling over appliances like the machine washer and stuff I still remember. And the family members are there and they hate calling ambulance. You know he's not feeling good and one of the officers decides to say no, well, he's just putting on a show because he doesn't want to get caught or whatever.
Speaker 2:Now, is that officer the one we were talking about earlier? Yeah, man, no way.
Speaker 1:If I remember correctly and you guys can go see the video he says hey man, no matter what kind of show you put on, we're still going to find something.
Speaker 2:Hold on, hold, on, hold on hold on. There's an actual video of that guy saying it on the. What do you have to type on the? Is it on?
Speaker 1:YouTube. Yeah, it's on YouTube like Charles Sampson, El Centro Police Department, something like that, Charles.
Speaker 2:Sampson, el Centro Police Department.
Speaker 1:Trust me this story it gets to the point to where him and the other officers on scene call dispatch and say, hey, if they call for an ambulance, don't send it oh, this is freaking beautiful and uh, pauling at the same exact time.
Speaker 1:So whatever they go, they don't find anything. Turns out this guy. They arrest him for God knows what and they turn him over to another officer to take to the hospital. He takes him to the hospital in the back of his car. I remember seeing the video. He pulls into the emergency the ER. When he comes out holy shit, this guy's not breathing in the back of my car. Into the emergency the ER. When he comes out, holy shit, this guy's not breathing in the back of my car.
Speaker 2:So that officer that told the guy stop putting on a show and called the dispatch, said don't call an ambulance. Where's he at now?
Speaker 1:He is a lieutenant or captain with the El Centro Police Department. Felicidades, compa.
Speaker 2:I love my job, bro. Yeah, this is the freaking truth.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's the truth later on there's a camera in the back of the car where they had the guy sequestered when they were searching the car shows that he pulled something out of his pocket I recall, I recall watching that video I mean, yeah, so dude, wow, that was a big incident.
Speaker 2:Now I don't want you to elaborate, you don't have to go into details, but was the department pretty concerned about that incident within?
Speaker 1:the department they were, but I remember the higher-ups going to like the dispatchers hey, we got your back, you guys are going to be all right, whatever, but obviously it doesn't look so good, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, it didn't look good at all, especially a small town, bro, everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 1:I don't remember exactly what time it was, but it was a black gentleman, you know. So it doesn't help the optics at all either.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep, dude For sure. So this whole time you were employed, were you enjoying your?
Speaker 1:job. Yeah, man, I loved it. Every time they called me for overtime I was like sign me up, dude. Really, yeah, I would work like special details, federal grant overtime details, where we would patrol 111, because obviously you know the border's there so you have a lot of chances of stopping a car, finding dope. Did that ever happen? I did once with this guy too, with this officer.
Speaker 2:Oh, you did was it a random? You pulled somebody over and they had dope in the yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think he. I'm sure he had more connections, you know he had feds and stuff like that, so maybe he knew what he was looking for. Okay, he called me over as a translator and the guy was kind of playing dumb. He had stopped him on dogwood. I'm going to a birthday party, but you could tell, you could tell he's dressed out buchon, you know. Oh, he was the guy that we pulled over, yeah.
Speaker 2:Straight freaking. End of watch.
Speaker 1:Ajá, no me le faltaba el sombrero.
Speaker 2:Y los botas de vestruz Andale.
Speaker 1:Well they had the what is it? The little gyms. I'm just going to a birthday party. Brought the dog. The dog Did he have a nice ride? It was okay, it was, I don't remember it sticking out that much, but he had like birthday presents or whatever. Dude, did he have a gun?
Speaker 2:No, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Pounds and pounds of crystal meth, dude Pounds and the little gift they party.
Speaker 2:No way, dude, Holy shit bro.
Speaker 1:So that was my. I was like dude, holy crap, and I had already started learning. Other officers had started teaching me how to document like narcotics cases and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, man, wow bro, what was your favorite part of the job? Dude? Was it drug bust? Was it getting DUI guys off the street? Gang members what was your favorite?
Speaker 1:Well, like drugs and gangs, I would say. But gangs weren't even that big anymore. I don't think Right, I felt like they were bigger when I was in high school, you know, and that hadn't been that long ago, but it had kind of died off a little bit. I think it was a little bit of a lot of them going to prison, probably, or Different generation yeah, man. So we were going through like a little there's more like veteranos type of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, man, that's what I really liked and I started really digging into that I would. I knew which ones were the areas or the houses that were selling dope. So if you catch a certain amount of people coming out of there, you could you have enough probable cause for a warrant to hit the house if you can get him to talk uh, I grew up in brawley.
Speaker 2:In the house next to me used to sell fucking heroin out the window for sure. There you go. Um, do you guys need a lot of information to be to put a warrant together? I mean, I'm sure you guys know who's selling dope right and you guys don't stop them every day. What did you just wait till you get tired of them?
Speaker 1:well, what I was, what I was told is. All you need is two people to tell you they got it from the same house.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:And then you could write it, have a judge sign off on it and if the judge thinks it's okay, boom, that's cool.
Speaker 2:So now we're going to kind of transition into you're loving your job, bro. You're doing it, you're doing it. You've never been in trouble before, right.
Speaker 1:Nah, man, Like I got in trouble once, like for showing up late to a shift. Yeah, that's nothing, you know.
Speaker 2:But other than that there was no trouble really. So walk us through. This call Domestic violence.
Speaker 1:Domestic violence.
Speaker 2:Walk us through the beginning of this incident.
Speaker 1:So I get assigned as primary officer. Dispatch puts out my badge number was 368. It was like 368, come in, go ahead. Respond to this possible 415. Domestic 415 is disturbance in the state of california, or I think. And then they also label it as a possible 243, possible battery. The neighbors calling from one of the apartments that they're next door neighbors. You could hear what is possibly a physical altercation. Blah, blah, blah. So here I go. It's on the 400 block of Heil, and I only know that because I was reading my notes earlier and before I show up the other officer at that time who was assigned as my cover officer. His name is James Thompson.
Speaker 2:So that officer from the story earlier that refused to give that Samson guy medical aid and stopped the paramedics from coming via dispatch was your partner that evening.
Speaker 1:He was the cover officer assigned. There's a couple guys, the cover officer, yeah, guys. The cover officer, yeah, um. So for domestic disputes, I believe are still up there with the most dangerous things that a police officer can respond to, right. So a potential domestic you always send to okay, because it could you know it gets crazy real quick.
Speaker 1:So, um, uh, yeah, he was one of the three officers involved that night of Mr Sampson's unfortunate death. He shows up first and he puts out over the air where he's out with this gentleman, puts out the name and I was like I remember the guy Because I had arrested him a couple months before for a gun charge. He gets there and then I get there right after he's talking to the guy outside the female, which I also knew from previous arrests and police contacts. He gets there and then I get there right after he's talking to the guy outside the female, which I also knew from previous arrests and police contacts. He's like he's not giving me anything, like my partner is saying like he's not giving me anything. So I pull him over to the side and my hey man, what's going on? And he knew me. You know he knew we had a job to do.
Speaker 1:Were you a younger dude or older dude? He was younger than me, really, yeah, but unfortunately he was. His dad also had a rap sheet. You know, it was just a family type of thing, unfortunately, but excuse me, then the I started talking to him and he's like oh no, I guess if I remember correctly, it was a dispute about who was cleaning or whatever, but you know, I mean domestic were they living?
Speaker 2:were they living together?
Speaker 1:They had a kid and everything. Oh shit, yeah. So was the kid present? Um, not that I recall. No, no, I can't remember I hadn't responded to calls regarding that kid. They were just trouble man back then, like the kid had tested positive for meth one day at the and I had to respond to the hospital and I had to charge them with like endangerment of a child. So it's not a nice household to be in. I know these guys are not star citizens, but I get it. So I started doing my thing and, uh, finally the girl lets us into the house and we start doing our thing and I start once. Once they tell me like he didn't hit me, she didn't hit me, whatever. There's no other witnesses.
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Speaker 1:And the couple's not saying he pushed me, she pushed me, he hit me. There's not really much I can do. So I then at this point I know something happened. I know something happened, but I can't prove it.
Speaker 2:You know, because you just have a feeling and they're acting weird yeah they're acting weird.
Speaker 1:Thompson's saying I still think this is a domestic and I'm like me too. Right, but I don't have any proof.
Speaker 2:And she's not saying hey, beat me up.
Speaker 1:Usually they don't say man, yeah, usually they're like you're going to take my vato to jail, you know. So anyways, back then, when somebody was on probation for a gun charge, there's a Fourth Amendment waiver and back then you could go through their phones. Now you can't, now you have to write a search warrant for their phones. I didn't even know that. Yeah, dude, so before it's like okay, if it's here, boom.
Speaker 2:Just the phones, can you still?
Speaker 1:go into their houses. I can go into their houses and their living spaces, but the phones, now they were. That's interesting. That's, that's information. Yeah, as long as it as uh, I don't think it's changed. But last I heard now you have to write a search warrant for the phone. Okay, so back then, since I didn't, I went through his phone. While I was looking through his phone, I find that he's selling marijuana out of his house. He has large amounts of marijuana, scales, money, pay O-sheets on his phone. So I was like you know what, I'm going to remove the problem. He's coming with me. You know, smart Felony, felony, it's a felony. Well, back then it was Right, now maybe not, but I took him and as I was looking through his phone, I had seen that he was buying guns, trying to buy guns from somebody named. I forget the guy's name.
Speaker 2:Let's not say his name, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right, right, Um. So I was like wow, when I took him, I was like, hey man, I see these other messages Like where's the guns, Like oh no, I don't have a gun. Blah, blah, blah, we didn't find a gun.
Speaker 2:Was that dude calm during all of this? Was he tripping? Was?
Speaker 1:he high, he would always give us like a little bit of attitude, not high. Always give us some attitude, but never he wasn't a fighter.
Speaker 2:Just playing chill yeah.
Speaker 1:Just sometimes he'd give attitude, but honestly, him at the station. This is what's going on. Do you know why you're?
Speaker 2:here and nope, that was it. I took him, you mirandized him and he didn't. He didn't really.
Speaker 1:Took him to imperial county jail the station first, and then to imperial county jail I know that process because I've been arrested yeah, and I went, I remember seeing your story, el centro station.
Speaker 2:Then they took me to the jail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I go home, I turn in my report, I get signed off, and then I get a call the next day from the patrol sergeant the next day and he's like hey, I just read your report, I just approved it, no-transcript with you. And he approved my overtime. Boom Came back in. Sweet dude. So this is my first search warrant, sweet bro. Yeah, you know, like I'm a couple years in, that was not your first felony arrest, no, okay, no, no, I had a couple. I was very proactive as a police officer pulling cars over you know that's just who I was.
Speaker 2:That's probably why you got fired bro. They don't like proactive cops.
Speaker 1:Not anymore. Exactly, I probably wouldn't make it now, if I'm honest with you. Find another reason to can me yeah. Reason to can me yeah. So we do the search warrant, we write it. He teaches me how to write it. I use one of his old search warrants as a go-by go to the judge. Judge signs off on it.
Speaker 2:Boom, we hit the house the next day in imperial you hit the house of the guy on the text message for the guns? Yes, and he lived in el centro as well.
Speaker 1:He lived in imperial. Okay, he lives in imperial, yeah, but at this time we had already made contact with the Border Street Interdiction Team, or whatever they used to call it. They all helped us. Dude, they did surveillance on the house, everything. We hit the house, we find two guns. Boom, take the guy too. So I did a lot of work for all this.
Speaker 2:Wow, dude, I didn't even know all this shit. This is getting juicy.
Speaker 1:So you're looking like a hero, I guess, or at least somebody who's out there to do their job, you know right? Uh, this was february of 2015 and then in like oh man, if I remember correctly august, I get like a memorandum. Somebody hands it to me I don't remember who that there. There's an intent to investigate me administratively for failure to investigate the domestic violence from the original call.
Speaker 2:I was like all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I got nothing to hide. So I went to one of my close friends who at the time was, I think, the union president or had been Straight squared away guy dude Now he works out here I still stay in contact with him and I was like, oh, I'll just go to this interrogation by myself. He was like, nah, bro, we were paying union dues for a reason. Let me call your union rep. So we faxed it, called me up, prepare, go to the first interview.
Speaker 1:A couple weeks later, months later, I don't remember and they asked me a lot about her and a cut on her lip came into question and, like I told you before, we talked like, oh, I'm going to say right off the bat, I missed the dude. She had a cut on her lip, she had a cut on her lip and I missed it and I didn't take pictures of it, which, hindsight, 2020, I should have no excuses. But I got tunnel visioned into the whole drug arrest and I still took him out, or whatever. But I got tunnel visioned into the whole drug arrest and I still took him out, or whatever. And before that first interview, the video was so long that we my, my attorney and I we went over it step by step but we didn't do the whole thing and we missed the part where the cut was on. So I finished my first interview. I'm sorry. I finished my first interview and I'm like, okay, I'm cool. You know, like I answered everything, like I don't remember seeing a.
Speaker 2:I didn't remember seeing a cut on her lip at that point because I didn't if you did see a cut on her lip that night, what actions would you have taken?
Speaker 1:just document it? There's no way. How can I prove that he gave that to her, correct, you know? And later on in the video it shows that th Thompson asked her and she's like I fell down the stairs, okay, well, she fell down the stairs, right, if I sent there? There's no way. There's no way you can send that to get filed.
Speaker 2:Right, it wasn't the DA. You're saying the DA is not going to pick it up. There's no way. Chapped lips or whatever.
Speaker 1:yeah, fucking cracked lips I mean it was probably him right. But it's not what you know, it's what you can prove now.
Speaker 2:It wasn't from after the, in hindsight, the video footage. Was it discolored?
Speaker 1:was it just no, you could see, there was something on there and I saw it on the video. You could tell on the video. Yeah, man, but the night of.
Speaker 2:You didn't see it, you overlooked it, and it happens, bro. Human error, yeah, a lot going on, and let's be realistic, it's. But what I want to know is, from what it seems to me is like somebody launched an investigation into you, right, and I kind of have an idea who that is. I think your feelings are correct. That is scandalous, bro, and that is disgusting, um, and if I think it's because they were jealous that you were getting this attention, from my perspective, bro, as an hey, this youngster's coming in and taking the spotlight.
Speaker 1:Wow, dude, that's crazy, because he used to do a lot for the department. Dude, that guy was really active in busting people with drugs.
Speaker 2:Oh man, so during this time that you're under investigation, are you still working or are you on admin leave?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, You're working. No, I'm working. I finished the first interview. I still go back on patrol. Were you married? No man, I didn't even know my wife at this point. You were single. I was single.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a plus. You said you were single and you had no kids. You know, did you think it was that serious?
Speaker 1:No man, until I got the second notice of another interview where they specifically said we're calling you in because we're investigating dishonesty on your part.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, walk me through this part. Your first investigation interview was due to you.
Speaker 1:Failure to document a domestic dispute correctly.
Speaker 2:Failure to document a domestic dispute correctly. Righture to document a domestic dispute correctly, right. And this is typical in all law enforcement. Bro, this is typical in California Department of Corrections. They'll bring you in and interview you for something and the next thing you know they'll flip your words around and say you're dishonest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. So they called me in for the second one. I sent it to the attorney and he's like what do they mean? Even. He's like what do they mean? He, even he was like what the hell is going on, man, this, this shouldn't even have gone this far. He has more experience representing police officers at this point, of course, and when I go into the interview, the first thing the sergeant does he's like hey, he directs. Both of us go look at this part of the video. And we're like okay, so we go back, we look at it and lo and behold, that's what shows me, noticing the cut that night on the body camera you noticing the cut that night on the?
Speaker 1:body, yeah, yeah, yeah why?
Speaker 2:did you make a comment?
Speaker 1:yes, what'd you say? I said what's up with that cut on your lip? I said that. So, like I said from the beginning, I, if I called it out, I should have just said there was a cut on her lip, and it would have saved me this whole thing.
Speaker 2:But what were they getting? Did you go on the microphone saying you didn't see it that night?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I said I don't recall there was a cut on her lip, on her that night, because before that, like I said, my attorney and I reviewed the video, right, and we just didn't go through that part. So when we got back to the interview room for the second one, I was like hey man, this is the first time since that night that I see that part of the video. And I was like straight up, I was like I just didn't remember that part and there's no reason for me to try to cover anything up. After all the work I did, if I was trying to not document something I wouldn't have done anything. I get it, bro. Document something, I wouldn't have done anything. I get it, bro.
Speaker 1:So we go through the whole process and I we specifically tell him like, hey man, we I reviewed it with my attorney, we were both there. We didn't see that part. Um, I mean, obviously it's there. You know, like I can't say it's not on the video, but I just didn't remember, I don't recall seeing it until now that I've that you directed me to look at that part and that was it, you know. And then he said, he told me specifically, cruz, you're going to be all right. Who said that? The sergeant that was interviewing me?
Speaker 2:who does that sergeant work for the El Centro PD?
Speaker 1:What is he? Internal affairs? At that time he was a detective sergeant, slash internal affairs or patrol, I think. I don't remember. Since it's such a small department, you don't have people assigned to the specific, so they kind of have dual roles.
Speaker 2:And he said, cruz, you're going to be all right, you're going to be all right After your second interview for dishonesty, why be all right?
Speaker 1:after your second interview, after my second interview why do you? Think he said that or did he think you were going to be?
Speaker 2:all right, he probably thought I was. I don't. I don't think he meant any ill intent, right, um so, yeah, was it above his call like to ultimately terminate you? Yeah?
Speaker 1:uh, so that happened, I don't remember exactly when, but then in like november, like the end of november, one day at the end of my shift, I, uh, I the call right when I'm going to go home and say, hey, the commander wants to talk to you. I was like, all right, I didn't think much of it.
Speaker 1:man like I said I go in there and they serve me with the memo of intern to terminate and I have to take off my badge. Take everything After your shift. Yeah, right, when it was going to end After your shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, when it was going to end After your shift. So they probably knew they were going to shit. Can you fire you?
Speaker 1:and they let you finish up your shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's wrong dude. I don't understand why there's these types of processes, so I had to go through that.
Speaker 1:I had to go through the equipment sergeant.
Speaker 2:What? When did they slide a memo across the desk, did he?
Speaker 1:tell you hey, we're, we're. They slid a memo, I read it, I sat down and I was like intent to terminate.
Speaker 2:What happened? Did you get tunnel vision? Was it like surreal? Did you get lightheaded Were?
Speaker 1:you confused. I was confused. I was like what do you mean? Like in my mind I'm like intent to terminate. In my mind I'm like attempted terminate. Like commander, what the hell? He's like yeah, man. And so they sent me to the sergeant. The other sergeant's officer was in charge of equipment, took my belt off. He's like please turn around and unload your firearm. Unloaded it, cleared it, turned it in. I had to get followed out of the police department, picked up all my stuff from the locker. They followed me home. They followed you home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they had to recover all their equipment that I had at my house.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I'm on my way home. I called my mom and I, honestly, man, I was crying on the way home, right, because I didn't. You know, I didn't know, I didn't know what the hell was going on. And my mom's like stop crying, when you get home, don't let him see you crying. You can cry all you want when they're gone. So I get there and my mom's waiting for us outside. I go in there, give them their equipment. They're outside of my house, you know. I give them my stuff and as soon as I close the door, man, I just break down with my mom.
Speaker 2:Was that guy Thompson there when they waited for you?
Speaker 1:Pat, no, it was one of my old FTOs and the equipment sergeant.
Speaker 2:Is anybody saying anything to you at this time, or is it just?
Speaker 1:awkward silence. No, I remember when I was walking to the locker room, it was my FTO. They just tasked him with just following me, you know.
Speaker 2:The FTO that chewed your ass out. Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 1:But you could tell his demeanor was he was upset man, he wasn't happy about it, right? So I looked at him and I said Richie, and he was like I know, man, but don't say anything. Remember, you can't say anything. I was like I know, right. So that was it and I started fighting it. Hearings, so you were terminated, effective that date of random, placed on admin leave first, for how long? With intent to terminate for about until January, january.
Speaker 2:Were you still receiving a paycheck?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had to report every day. They'll call and report. I had to stay within County lines. No way, yeah I. If I got a subpoena, they would let me know and I would have to go to the court you were living alone.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I was at my mom's. You're living at your mom's. What kind of thoughts were going through your head, bro? Uh I.
Speaker 1:They didn't sink in. At first I was like there's no way, like there's a process, there's a police officer bill of rights, which I heard one of your other guests talk to you about. This gentleman, yeah, you have a right to a skelly hearing, correct? Uh, I had my skelly hearing with the chief. Didn't work. I went to the personnel of appeals boards with the city of el centro. They violated their rules. They should have. They should have had like four people, I think, on the panel got one guy who decided to obviously go in their favor, the attorney they hired to go against me. When we walked outside of that hearing he shook my hand. He's like I'm sorry, man, I don't know why this is happening to you. Their attorney, they knew, bro, of course. So the arbitration, the arbitration hearing, was a joke, honestly. They tried to. They tried to slap a felony on me during that.
Speaker 1:No fucking way, dude they tried to say that I falsified some of the words on my search warrant. So that's an official document, so that would have been a felony. But thank God, when we played the whole video in the hearing it showed that what I wrote was true. Yeah, man, it was not. We went to court at the like I was showing you earlier. We went in front of a judge. Were you feeling? Anxiety during this, oh dude, I was like depression, depression, hard bro.
Speaker 2:Now 2020 I'm like dude, yeah, look, tell us in hindsight what kind of emotions you were going through.
Speaker 1:I was depressed, I didn't. I was like sleeping a lot, I didn't. I didn't want to like, do a lot, you know, like I didn't. I didn't get to a point where I didn't want to be here, you know. But you were isolating. You probably didn't want to go out. I was isolating, not wanting to go out. I the night that that happened to me.
Speaker 1:Dude, I'll never forget that dude, one of my, one of my partners, he went to my house to check on me. That's a good dude. Yeah, I'll never forget that. And I, you know who you are, bro, um, I, the one thing about all this all my partners, dude, my partners that really know me, yeah, they've been with me still, dude, that's awesome. I used to live with one of them even after that. Like that speaks volumes. You know what I mean. Yeah, so it. It took a long time. Uh, I like I said hindsight man, like even my one of my friends, man who was also in the marine corps deployed twice to iraq, purple heart, I remember he would call me because he was my trainer at the gym.
Speaker 1:I was at the time with his cousin, was the owner of the gym. He's like hey, vente, vente, vente. Yeah, get me out of my house, you know right. So I don't forget that stuff, you know, and I always tell him when I can. I'm like dude. I don't forget how you and your cousin were checking up on me when I was not doing all right. Did you have anger and resentment towards the department, bro, for the longest time? For the longest time, even this morning, when I was reading on all like my stuff, I was like dude, you guys. Hindsight 2020. If, if, if I was in the place of my sergeant that night, because, remember, I told you, uh, thompson, the whole reason this started was because thompson went to the sergeant that night. Hey, cruz messed that.
Speaker 2:Call up did was that.
Speaker 1:It was that revealed in the investigation process yeah, when I read the documents I was like, like this guy went dude.
Speaker 2:Okay, let me give you guys a summary man the officer from El Centro PD that missed the call or let the dude die and fucking, I mean it's on documentation went and told on this guy right here, and then what did they do? They promoted him, yeah, a couple times. I guess I was doing it all wrong, huh, no, bro, let me tell you you were doing it all right, bro, the truth comes out in the wash is what they say. Um, you know what I mean and eventually everything shall be revealed. Yeah, man, and there's no. You know, it's not coincidence that me and you met and we have this platform. You know what I mean. The truth is the truth, bro, and it's not coincidence that me and you met and we have this platform. You know what I mean. The truth is the truth, bro, and it's documented.
Speaker 1:It's documented. It's all there, man, it's all there. And even after, when I was still fighting, I got hired at Calexico police department. Dude, what do you mean? I got hired. They called me dude. I was already fired, they had already accused me of dishonesty and you had applied for a central PD. No, they called me bro. They called me like hey, do you still want to be a cop? I'm like yeah, dude. So I went back, I passed their polygraph. They specifically asked me a question of did you intentionally mislead this investigation?
Speaker 2:boom passed on the polygraph the polygraph.
Speaker 1:Bro dude, unfortunately I couldn't use a polygraph for my case with el centro, okay did you end up getting hired with collection? I did you know yeah, you know what happened what somebody from el centro went to speak to the city manager a month later and convinced him to let me go. That's disgusting, dude, and this is what I heard from an officer who was there at the time was a hey man. This is what I heard. I have friends in the city hall and this is what they did that's disgusting, bro.
Speaker 2:Again, everything happens for a reason. You're better off. You're better off that you're not there, right, but the fucking whole act is disgusting um, yeah, man, it was.
Speaker 1:It was bad, like they just didn't care. Dude, a judge told him in court this is crazy. You guys need to change your decision because in the state of california, if you accuse a police officer of dishonesty, you have to be able to prove intent or that they have something to gain, which I did not. And he said you guys have not established intent here. What's going on? I'm gonna kick it back. You guys need to change your decision. You know what they did. They just put intent is implied, intent is implied I like that, fuck dude.
Speaker 1:So you, you said you appealed it and that went nowhere no, um, after this whole process, like I went to the I think it went to the appellate court of california or something like that. Throughout that time they had to change attorneys like three times. I don't know what's going on with that, so it got delayed. Then they offered me like five thousand dollars to let it go. Who did that? Was the city of el centro central pd, to let it go. Who did the city of El Centro, el Centro PD To let it go?
Speaker 2:huh, that's it, I'm like $5,000.
Speaker 1:Like a settlement. But I was like, come on, man, this is worth more than $5,000. So I said no, they violated my skelly rights because they brought up new evidence in the middle of the trial that we were going through. Of course they did, they didn't care. My attorney brought it up and they didn't care. It's just one of those things that, uh, probably I wasn't gonna stop it, man, they had already made up their mind.
Speaker 2:Was that one of the worst things you ever experienced in your life?
Speaker 1:that's the worst thing. That's the worst thing because I loved doing that so much.
Speaker 2:Man like that was, I thought that was my calling for life do you feel that the attack on your character was worse than you actually losing your job? Yeah, meaning, hey, they're making me out to be a liar, a criminal, and I'm neither. I'm getting chills, bro, because I fucking hate departments to this day.
Speaker 1:If, if somebody calls me a liar, I take that personally dude and that's probably something that I have to deal with and not like, have that reaction to, but it just takes me back to like dude, I'm like a trigger, yeah yeah, man, damn dude, that is a freaking hell of a story, bro.
Speaker 2:Um, you said you have a better job. Now you have a good job, man. How's life now? I'm?
Speaker 1:good man. I mean, I, uh, I work at costco. I'm a supervisor at costco in the area. Um, that's what's up. My wife, my wife, uh, has a master's degree. She's way smarter than I am nice dude.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, man, I'm happy I don't live in the valley anymore. I I yeah, man, things are like you said, man it for a reason. Although it was shitty at the time, I learned a lot. My perseverance has has grown a lot. My I just now it takes a lot more to stop me, you know, to bring me down type of thing, and I hope that me speaking about all this helps other people going through it, because unfortunately I know it's something that's a lot more common in law enforcement now.
Speaker 2:So I can tell you, I know about probably 1,000, about 800 officers that have gotten fired right in different departments, different agencies, for the same shit, bro, and there will be more to come. What advice do you have to those cops that are about to be wrongfully terminated?
Speaker 1:um, first, uh know that there's a possibility that you will not go back, because that's one of the mistakes I made. My the first thing I was like, no, I'm gonna go back, when I go back, when I go back. Okay, just be open to the possibility because it just, if it doesn't happen for you, in your favor, at least you're prepared for it. Get yourself a good attorney. Do not give any voluntary statements, which I did not, but and uh, review everything. Review everything all the way to the last document fuck dude.
Speaker 2:But ultimately it sounds to me that there's you can't even save your job if you wanted to. You know what I mean. Like if you tried, like there's some things that are just it's a government so big yeah, man, I just yeah, man, well, dude, thank you for sharing that freaking story, bro. Is there any last closing statements you want to say the camera's yours, bro, world watching I just would like to portray the message that it's not over.
Speaker 1:It's not over when you think you're at your lowest. It's not over when you think they've torn you all the way down. You can always start again and there's always something on the other side for you, man. If your mind is right, if your intentions are right, you're going to end up somewhere on the top, somewhere else maybe, but you'll come back, you know.
Speaker 2:Damn dude. You're a solid bro. You're a solid dude man.
Speaker 1:I can tell just by judging you.
Speaker 2:Bro, appreciate that I'm reading you. There you guys have it folks. Holy shit man, it's really upsetting, right. And if you guys didn't know, these type of terminations and dismissals from law enforcement jobs are a are plaguing, plaguing departments across the United States. Man With that, thank you guys for watching. Make sure you hit that subscribe button for more episodes. Love you guys. Keep pushing forward.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
