Ep. 65: Tegan Broadwater - Living Undercover Inside a Dangerous Gang

On this gripping episode of Interesting Humans, former Fort Worth police officer Tegan Broadwater pulls listeners into the shadowy world of deep-cover law enforcement, where every conversation could be his last and every decision carried life-or-death consequences. Tasked with infiltrating a violent street gang during the FBI’s “Operation Fishbowl,” Broadwater assumed the identity of a high-level cocaine dealer and stepped into a reality where trust was currency—and suspicion was lethal. 

Moving through darkened neighborhoods guarded by lookouts, barred doors, and armed enforcers, he navigated tense drug deals, surprise confrontations, and moments where a single misstep could have exposed him. In one chilling encounter, a deal nearly spiraled into violence when a shotgun was leveled at him before he could prove he belonged. 

For nearly two years, Broadwater lived a double life, balancing family, fear, and the relentless pressure of maintaining his cover while methodically working his way up the gang’s hierarchy. His efforts ultimately led to 51 federal indictments, dismantling a network responsible for violence and instability in the community. 

Yet the mission left him with lasting moral weight—forcing him to confront not only crime, but the human cost on families and neighborhoods caught inside the “fishbowl.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right, guys, welcome to another episode of Interesting Humans. Today we have two cops, and I'm going to let you figure out exactly who's who. One of them was in more of a fraternity, I'll call it, and the other one did some very serious stuff that he's going to talk about today. So, Tegan, Broadwater, I want to welcome you to the to the show today. First off, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Honor to be here. Thank you, sir.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

So let me just let me just frame this up. Fort Worth Police Department, you get into a task force that I'm going to have you explain. You're now working for the FBI. You're doing uh Operation Fish Bowl. I'm going to have you talk about that. You infiltrate a dangerous, well-known, violent street gang, and and helped helped bring 51 indictments, right? I I you guys are amazing, and I can't wait to hear some of these answers that we're going to talk about today. So the psychology, the danger, the split decisions, knowing that if you do the wrong thing, you can die. All that stuff. So I mean, so again, thanks for being on. Let's dive right in. Um, first thing is what part of your personality, who you are, what part of that personality helped you survive undercover that you maybe didn't even realize that you had before?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

And I think primarily um I kept my personality close to my real personality. And I think that's probably what ended up being one of the more fascinating aspects of this case, because obviously I don't appear as as though I can fit in with a cryp set. Uh so going in wanting to stand out, I mean, I went in posing as a high-end cocaine dealer from South Texas, who had just had his uh source was busted by the Fed. So I came up trying to leverage myself kind of as an opportunity to get in on the dope side, not necessarily jump in on the gang side, but I was targeting gang members specifically. So it was a gang case. But I think most of my personality, I think one, it it keeps you from having to keep track of too much stuff and to let you actually improvise and work and have real conversations with these cats when you're not having to memorize 800 things. Obviously, you have to set up uh you know an identity and you've got IDs and all this kind of stuff. But really, when I think back on it, none of these fools are gonna look at my ID. I mean, unless I want to just prove I'm a cop because I want to show them my driver's license says the name that I told them that is, because what high-end dope dealer's gonna do that anyway? Nobody. So unless they just took it off my body and realized, uh-oh, you know, after they did something to me. But I so I think the the part of my the personality that I think was most successful, I felt like I could do this, but nobody really knew. I mean, you know, my sergeant belly laughed at the proposition, you know, when I came to him as guy, man, these guys are killing people, the chief of police and the city council and the mayor are throwing all these resources at this part of the neighborhood, and I just need to get in and get the head of the snake by working my way up the chain, working undercover. And he thought it was hilarious because as capable as I was and had proven myself to him, I obviously didn't look the part. And I think typically everybody just assumes, well, you got to find somebody that's familiar with that culture that looks the same, that can go infiltrate, you know, you got to get an Italian guy with a cool northeastern accent to go infiltrate the mob, and you know, that's tough, you know. So uh I just I just decided consciously that I'm gonna have as many aspects of my real personality come out as my alter persona, and I think that's what saved me really. And and it and it and it turned out to be successful, which again, who knew if it would succeed or not in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Incredible. So did I hear it right? You came to your boss with the idea.

unknown 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Did I hear that right now?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah, this is yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you know, we had well, we had all those problems. There were so many murders that were happening in that very centralized area within the within the bad side of town already, uh, that they spared no expense to try to combat it. But they kept running in and doing search warrants and then hitting dry holes, and they would do unmarked vans and people just bailing out to see who ran, and they would try to latch up dope, and but they had radios on the in in there's one way in, one way out, and they had radio communications happening there, so all that was failing. So uh, you know, and nobody was willing to snitch on these guys because again, this isn't just a typical little dope haven. This is, you know, a violent street gang. So they know if they leave there and they get caught with dope, but they're not giving up anybody. So it essentially was failing. And and I had been aspiring to do more and more undercover by that time, too. I've been doing it for several years and thought, man, this is my opportunity to try to do something long-term, which is kind of unheard of since the 70s and 80s for the most part, that still goes on, obviously, but the long-term deep cover where you're assuming a new identity and you have a place and and all that kind of stuff is very rare within a police department. So I I kind of looked at it as an opportunity to do something both ambitious and potentially impactful.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

That's incredible. So I would think I walk into a grocery store, I'd be looking over my shoulder all the time, saying, Yeah, well, wait, yesterday uh those guys thought I was somebody else. What if I run into one of them today? Uh what is all that like for you?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah, well, that was that was part of the other weird part about this case is that I essentially crapped in my own backyard, right? Because I worked within the city. So we had a I had a son at the time that was 10 and 11 years old. Um, and my wife, and we had this little plan where we'd see somebody at the mall because we all went to the mall. Uh, and then uh we would just kind of walk apart. I would give her a little nudge and just kind of start walking away, and she would just walk as if we had been in passing, you know, when we saw somebody. And I'd go up and talk to a family member or somebody or whatever. But obviously I was, you know, in a full-time role. So if I was ever out with a family or out in public, then I had to be constantly on alert. It was mentally draining, obviously, to be in that role for that long, but there were respites, obviously, because when I was actually not at an undercover location, I could still relax a little bit, at least if I was sitting in my own living room. I just, you know, had to be aware that every time I left the house, you know, for almost a uh damn near two years, I had to be essentially looking over my shoulder. But, you know, it's also at certain points in this case, too, once I had established myself, I was somebody that people sought out because I had purported myself to be a big-time guy and had worked my way up the chain. So now people were wanting to do deals with me. So I was more sought after as kind of a uh the from the street guys like, man, I want to do business with T because you know I was coming up myself. So it was less about really feeling like people were threatening me because I was I was still engaged with them and doing business with them. So if nothing else, it was just looking over your shoulder to make sure that you know when they're present so that you don't give up your cover, not necessarily that they were after me for any reason during the case, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Pick any deal, any any drug deal that happens, walk me through the whole thing from when you wake up. Is it like in a movie when you go to a little room and you got two guys standing there with shotguns and rifles and all like what is it all, what is it, what did they want from you? What drives them? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, it's kind of funny. So, I mean, there's several, um, several instances that that popped up, but these guys all love watching Al Pacino do his thing as much as anybody else. And so there is some truth, even though the movies are way fictionalized these days. I think there is some truth to the badass rate that they try to purport. Uh, so typically, so I I, you know, one of the deals would be like somebody would call me one o'clock in the morning and say, hey man, I'm on my way back from Waco. I got a load. If you want to do a couple birds, whatever, they would talk all their lingo and figure out what I want. And then I would, you know, score the money at the when I was working with the FBI, I had the money and resources. In the beginning, all I did was buy samples because our department didn't have enough money for me to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. But if I show up and I'm, you know, doing a$20,000 plus dollar deal, then you're pulling through a neighborhood and and you're passing up all the lookouts who radio in. Uh, I will pull up to a house and park. And then typically it's, you know, the the streetlights had all been shot out out there on purpose. And so it was really dark and kind of it was sort of haunting because it was still a dilapidated neighborhood. And a lot of these houses were lived in, but a lot of them were not. And a lot of the ones that were were barely livable were the ones that they leveraged to do their business out of. And some of the other homes were literally people that had lived there and their families for 65 years and were poor and couldn't afford to just up and leave, although all this violence was going around. So you would pull up in these real crap neighborhoods. You you pull up, there's usually a chain link fence around the front, you let yourself through that, and then you go up the steps. They've got a dog, they're usually outside guarding the front. Uh, and hopefully your dog either knows you or you wait outside until they bring them in. Um, and then as was also typical, is they have what they call a burglar bar cage. And so I would I would knock and then they would come out, they would unlock a burglar bar, they would unlock their door, a burglar bar door, and then step out into the patio into this cage and unlock that as well. So it was really reinforced, although it didn't appear as as though it was that that far enforced. A lot of the times they were, just to prevent cops from having enough time to get in before they could either escape or get rid of evidence or whatever. So it made it difficult. But going through there mentally, having having written and served, you know, dynamic search warrants and having to try to pry all those bar doors off and then hit the door and then realize there's another bar door and all that kind of stuff, those things ran through my mind in reverse when you went into those houses because I would usually be able to get through the front gate, get myself to the patio uh burglar bar cage, and then somebody would be coming out. I could hear them all unlocking and they would come out and let me in. But as I also entered at that point, I would step through the first one, it would get locked, step through the door, shut, locked, step all the way into the threshold, close the other burglar bar door that was on the inside, close, locked, and then you realize, well, that's just locked. So this is, you know, now, now this is it. You know, we're gonna we're and it's it it only clicks for a little bit and before you kind of refocus on on the mission that you're there for and and recognize that these guys also want you there. But as part of a general practice, it's it's something that is kind of eye-opening, especially in retrospect. I mean, now that I'm old, I mean, shoot, I'm amazed at some of the stuff I decided to do too. But you know, as a young, ambitious cop, you know, I was willing to do more than I would now, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Jeez. Oh my gosh. All right, the very first one you ever did.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

In the fishbowl.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

The first fishbowl. Yeah, when you pulled into a house and you went in. I mean, you just had me so scared and goosebumps with what you just explained. Oh my gosh, like if one thing goes wrong and they figure something out.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Right. Well, yeah, and and you kind of have to keep that out of your mind. So, you know, one the first time I got to go into a house to do a deal, but typically these guys don't do business where they lay their heads. So okay. So if if and when you get the opportunity to do something like that and they're gonna do a deal, and you know, wow, this this cat actually lives here and we're doing a deal at his house, that also was a significant uh step up the ladder to me because it's a level of trust when they say, Hey man, just come to the house. One, yes, they could be just being lazy, but as careful as some of the people are in the upper levels, it was a significant move. So I had called this cat and he said, Man, come on over, we'll do a deal here. And I was super excited and um and decided to bring because the way I purported myself at the beginning was that I was trying to help these this other guy build his hustle. Because when I purported myself to be this big time cocaine dealer, I can't go in there and be buying all these little samples and spending less money and still back that front. So uh so I would go in, I would bring an informant and say, look, you're gonna be the guy that I'm gonna be paying to get his thing, almost like as a favor, because I would go in saying, I'm looking for powder cocaine. These dudes on the low level are doing crack cocaine. I don't have any use for that. But I'll tell you what, I'm just I'm throwing him, you know, a few hundred bucks to get his hustle going because he's helping me kind of get around and learn who's who. And so I would be able to witness deals or buy from them and let them do a transaction with him. So in this case, I went to go pick up this informant and we were gonna go to the house for the first time. And when I showed up, he was late, as always. You know, I mean, you know, informants, you know, we we love them and we hate them at the same time, right? They're they're people, if you get to know them, they're awesome. But there's a reason why they're working as an informant too. Sometimes I I wonder. So this cat, this cat's got you know, his hair is all smushed down, all pillowheaded and everything else, just stretching like he just woke up and putting on a t-shirt. I'm like, dude, we gotta roll. This is kind of a big deal, you know. To me, I was super stoked. And then he comes comes fully out the house and he has a guy named Carlos, who he had talked about on a number of occasions. I'd I used him once or twice to kind of look overlook some deals that we'd had, but Carlos didn't speak English very well. And he was uh he was a legitimate South Texas enforcer for the cartel. And this informant had been involved in in other giant federal cases, so they had met each other then. I'm I wouldn't swear up and down that this informant wasn't also still involved in something else, but nothing that I knew of anyway. So I start getting pissed, like, dude, what's with the caboose? We can't bring, you know, Carlos, and he's like, man, T, you know, he's you he can look out. You know, he can spot, you know, trouble in a second, and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, man, this does, this is not good. I'm I know this isn't smart. I'm doing this deal off the books because most of the time by then it was just completely impractical to you know call someone and say, hey, set up five white dudes and Florida Explorers within two blocks to listen to me and tape this wire. I mean, it was so ridiculous at the time. I it was something that I understand better now as an older person, having led people in business and everything. I I understand the concern and why you would want to do that, but I was hadn't I was having none of it at that time because that's not how you're gonna succeed. These guys want to meet, you just go meet. You don't have to be on, you know, eight cops timestamp, you know, take three hours to get all set up for that.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

So, anyway, so we pull up to the house. I say, fine, I bring them, which is a probably a mistake, but again, I was so myopically focused on getting this deal done because it was in the house. Same house. We get we go through and we get to the burglar cage and buzz, and all of a sudden the door flies open. This is this is at nighttime, so you see the door fly open and there's light. So when they come out, they have the advantage because you're illuminated essentially, and you can't quite tell who this foggy figure is. Well, this foggy figure was no one I'd ever dealt with at the time. Uh, so and he is cussing you MFers, you white MFers, what are you doing here? Because again, this is atypical for someone to be at a house trying to do some kind of deal, let alone bringing a posse, you know. So I've got these other dudes. I'm standing on this stoop, essentially like a three-step stoop that leads up to this cage, and he's sticking a shotgun through it, aiming it at us and cussing. He looks like he's on something or sweating or something, and I'm like, hey, I'm just hands are up and I'm trying to talk him down and saying, Hey, bro, we're just we're here to do business. We got invited here. You know, check with B. You know, he knows he's invited me here, blah, blah, blah, making this giant deal out of it. And I kept thinking in my mind, like, this is why I don't bring someone like Carlos, first of all, because now tactically I'm kind of hamstrung because a guy step off the stoop and try to draw or something like that while he's got his gun in between the bars and he only has so much time that he can move before he has to. I can't think like that anymore because I have two other targets standing behind me, you know. So it changes your tactical process in your mind too. So I'm literally de-escalating like a mug that entire time. Finally, uh my guy runs to the door and is like, hey, get get back, man. That's tea. It's it's good, it's good, it's good. And this guy's, you know, still looking at us all mean and sweaty. And so he steps back and he lets us in and says, Hey man, come on in, man. We're good, you know, like we're coming in for for tea or something. And then um, so as soon as we step through the actual threshold of the door and into the house, um my guy asks, you know, who's this cat? And I so I start to explain, and no sooner than I start to explain, his little punk starts yapping again. He's like, Yeah, who you Latin King wannabe MF, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, starts going on like this because the guy's Hispanic. And so I again, this guy just couldn't get enough. So as soon as he did that, he starts jawing too much. Uh, Carlos pulls a pistol from his waistband, which again, giant tactical mistake on Tegan's part, because I'm letting this fool go come with me, and I didn't even really search him down because that wasn't even part of I didn't even fathom that my informant would be dumb enough to let this cat come armed. But he was armed. He runs, charges the dude, shoves him up against the wall, and sticks the gun in his mouth and is cussing in Spanish. I don't like coming in Spanish. I'm thinking, oh shit. So I I immediately walk over and step on the shotgun that he dropped because he got shoved against the wall. I stepped on it because I don't want to, I first of all, I don't want anybody picking it up. And I and I don't want to be looking down at it or bend down to pick it up because everything is as volatile as it can be. So tactically, I'm thinking, I gotta keep my head up. So I step on it so that nobody could pick it up. And I'm looking at my informant who's trying to speak Spanish to him and talk him down, and I'm trying to talk my my host into saying, man, just let him deal with it. This is gonna be okay. Just, you know, let's let him talk it out, man. We don't mean it. We you know, we're not trying to do anything, and I'm trying to talk to in English to Carlos at the same time. Bunch of voices, everything escalating, it's ridiculous. Uh, so eventually, uh, Carlos decides he's he's gonna pull the gun out, and he does so hard, causing this dude to mouth to bleed, his lips all split, his broken teeth and gums or whatever he's got in there, and he's bleeding all over the floor. And so I immediately put on the persona. I'm like, dude, what the F are you doing here? I don't know how much of this do you need on your show, but I'm like, you get the F out of here. This is disrespectful. This is my deal. This has nothing to do with you. I can't believe you do something like this, you know, whatever. And I'm telling those guys, you know, get the F out of this house. And and uh meanwhile, this this cat goes over to the sink and he's spitting blood and putting water in his mouth and all that kind of stuff. And I look to my host and I'm like, man, man, I'm sorry, dude. This wasn't the way I planned it. And I kept at that very moment was the first time I realized, man, I hope he lets us leave because this is F'd up. You know, this is a this is supposed to be a deal. And then it's the first time it occurred to me, like, well, I just walked into this dude's house and my people just made a mess and screwed with his guy, even though his guy was, you know, uh the provocator, it was still a significant thing. But what it turned out to be was street cred. Because he's like, man, T, I'll hit you in the morning. We'll find another spot, we'll get you taken care of. I didn't even make finish the transaction or anything at that point. I was like, get me out of here. That guy needs an ambulance. And we gotta get out of here. So this is the last time I ever brought anyone into a house uh, you know, to kind of do some kind of deal. I was man, that's so ridiculous. And that was, you know, it wasn't the first deal. Deal, you know, the little sample deals are just, you know. Yeah. But that was the first significant deal that I was able to solidify, which ended up just being postponed slightly.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Oh my God. So I'm I'm sitting there where I'm in my seat. You just got me in that house. I could feel it. And I'm like, how do you do what you do? But Tegan, is there somebody from the past world uh that you still think about today and and maybe you wish that the story ended a little differently for them?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Many with uh with one significant. So there were the interesting part about this case was it was my first foray into doing a federal case. Uh so when the FBI brought me in and deputized me, whatever, and I did that, we started organizing as a federal case. At the end, when we rounded everybody up, I I realized, you know, in my head, I'm thinking, man, I really like this guy, I like this guy, that guy needs to go away forever, blah, blah. But then you realize in short order, I have zero control from this point on. You once you turn that over to an AUSA and you have the FBI involved, and everyone's trying to create a case the way they create a case, and then you put it in hands of a federal judge, it depends on which judge, first of all, there are two of them in the northern district over here at the time, and they were completely different people. So, you know, one was a hardcore guy, and the other one was a lot more compassionate but and and and fair. Uh, and honestly, it didn't bother me at first until you realize I just think in my head that I'm gonna be able to get this kid to cooperate because if if he'll just talk a little bit about you know how this works, whatever, he's gonna get a you know, a downward departure. I'm gonna be able to, I'll I will be willing to testify on his behalf, on his character, which I ended up doing for four or five people.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Um, but some but then you get to the end and you realize when I come out and say, hey, I'm in a I know I've been hanging out with you and playing video games and sharing 40s and you know, doing business and whatever. But guess what? I actually am not who I said I was. But in my mind, I'm thinking, but I'm pretty much am. I mean, I I really like you and I think you have some social redeeming value. There's some changes you need to make, but I know you can make it. So I just need you to talk and and I just expect them to believe me again. I think that's that's being a little presumptuous. So some of these dudes were just gave me birds, were like not talking. They were so pissed off, they felt so betrayed. Other ones actually couldn't wrap their head around the fact that I was wasn't who I said I was. And I'd be sitting across a table with the AUSA and an FBI agent and me sitting across the table from them, and they'd be accusing them, I know you did the blah, blah, blah. We know you did, and they'd be like, Man, that's bullshit. T, tell them, T, tell them. It ain't like that, T. Tell them, you know, and they and they're pleading with me. And I'm just like, dude, I'm on, I'm on the other side of the table, too, you know. So sometimes they couldn't wrap their minds around it, and other ones wrapped their minds around it immediately and just told me to F off. So the problem that that is that birthed was that I could not control at all what the sentences came out to be. And a lot of these guys ended up getting hammered just by staying quiet when a slight amount of cooperation would have gotten them a huge uh help. And, you know, they don't know. They they're taking advice from attorneys and everything else. I think we can fight this, the blah, blah, blah. And so it was it was disappointing for me to see some of the guys who I thought, man, this guy, you know, doesn't deserve to go away for 21 years. I was thinking if we could, if, if they gave him four, I'd be happy, you know. But the but a lot of these guys got significant um punishment. One of them in particular wanted to cooperate, and then the some of the high, some of the ranking crips and the bully crips got word that he was going to cooperate and started sending messages to him in the jail via a jailer, threatening his family and everything else if he didn't recant everything that he had already said. And so instead of him coming to us and saying, Man, I'm being threatened, what he did was write a letter straight to the judge and said, I just lied about every single thing I've ever said. And so this was this happened to me also, most of these guys in this case are 25-ish years old. And I was 35, pretending to be 30, so I could, you know, squeeze in there. But this cat in particular was much older than I was then. Um, and probably I'm I'm a terrible mathematician, upper 40s, because he'd spent, you know, he was an OG at the time that, you know, walked to parks with Tukey Williams in South Central LA and was just out of prison, which is why he was out there. He was kind of an enforcer, actually, that helped me uh help get my back in a lot of instances. But they screwed him over so bad, being the oldest guy in the case, and then they sent him back to finish a parole revocation for some kind of robbery, and then added fishbowl, added another 25 years on top of that. I'm thinking, well, this this guy's as good as dead. And what happened was ironically, is the guys that threatened his life and said you better write a letter to the judge, then snitched, cooperated, got out, and they've been out for a long time. So this particular guy was not only somebody that in the streets had my back, he was somebody that I had uh a real affinity towards. I, you know, intuitively you just kind of talk to some people that you sort of like, and in that environment, a lot of it's intuitive. Um some of these guys I had really long intimate conversations with. This was not one of them, but I just had a really interesting feeling about him. He was well spoken, seemed to be educated, knew what he was doing, was uh was sympathetic with my situation, um, was willing to get my back and everything else. And I really thought he had a lot to offer. And so ironically, within the first maybe two years after everybody was put in federal prison, he wrote me. And I thought, okay, so I was scared to open the thing at first, uh, you know, because like I don't know what this cat's saying. But uh, and his and his opening was, hey T, I hope you and Holly are doing well. And Holly is my wife, and he spelled her name right, which is H-O-L-L-I. And I thought, oh no, this is not gonna be good. The boy's doing his homework, you know. But actually, it was a great letter because I think he appreciated me, knew that I was just doing my job, and I told as much in court when they walked him off in cuffs. I said, bro, it's I hope you know this is nothing personal. And I think he took to that. So we became pen pals, and I would put money on his books, and you know, if he had trouble, I would, you know, try to work through the system to get him out and transfer prisons or whatever during his his stint there. And uh actually at towards the end here, had actually hired an attorney myself to try to help him get out, had some meetings with some of the federal judges that were here, had some lunch meetings and explained what my situation was. Like this dude, all these other cats have gotten out, all but three or four guys. And I'm like, he deserves to be out, he's the one that got screwed the worst. He needs he deserves an opportunity. So um I was working with them and they were trying to get this last paperwork done, and the federal judge was ready to receive it and try to take it on and see what we could do to get him out. And then upon Biden's departure, he commuted uh or got him a uh clemency. So he ended up getting released anyway. So now we've you know made a another connection and we we talk actually on the phone and text and whatever. So it's been a great experience. I know there's some other people out there uh that I talk to, but for the most part, even the guys that I really liked at the time, I haven't kind of poked the bear. You know, if they were interested in talking, I would love to chat with some of them because I I'm honestly a cheerleader for them, you know. You gotta go do your prison time and you get out, man. I uh I'll be the first in line to to say, man, I've been hoping that you get out and make this work. I mean, I don't want them to fail after they paid their penance.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

So uh but I but I haven't gone seeking them out because I don't think that's fair either.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah. Is is there a is there a time when you feel afraid now, even though it's years past, like hey, uh that that this guy might still hunt me down, or is that past?

SPEAKER_01 31:16

No, I mean uh a lot of these guys have gotten out within the past couple years, and this clemency also was issued to a few other guys in this case, and I'm still not sure why that clemency happened, other than I think that they made some association with this case as a as a drug case, which it was not. Again, I leveraged drugs to get in, but targeted only violent Crip gang members. So uh I think if they knew that, I don't know why anybody would just get forgiven and sent out on the street. But I worry about it all the time, but less and less once people are out, and I, you know, I think once once they're out for a short period, it seems like that's when they would be most interested to to retaliate. And then they realize too, since I've you know been more in the public eye, that they realize this this case wasn't about me at all. It was really about trying to keep this cycle from continuing. Uh, you know, so I'm I'm helping the kids in those neighborhoods, even the kids that they left behind, you know, and we spent time, you know, bolstering their Christmases and and helping the the grandparents that were having to care for the kids and or the mothers that were left um having to deal with the kids, um getting them mentorship programs and stuff like that. So they know this isn't really about me trying to paint myself out as some Batman. Uh so I I'm hoping that they realize that, that I that I have a genuine interest in making sure that they succeed and their kids succeed. This isn't about you know putting them back into uh the prison system, it's it's quite the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

So the opposite. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

And I can't I can't wait to get into that. So let's so staying on on topic here, there's there's gotta be an invisible line crossed. And I don't uh I want you to explain this to me. So at what point does law enforcement the intelligence gathering part, at what point does it start to feel like manipulation rather than justice?

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Um in undercover work specifically or just general law enforcement?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Let's let's stay in what you did. Let's like fishbow. Let's look at the undercover side of it. Do you ever sit there and say, gosh, this was unfair on our part or their part?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Or um in in my case, I don't because I had so much information on a lot of the main players before I even attempted to infiltrate. Um and I think that's kind of the key. So and I've been asked about you know whether, you know, you're uh trying to entrap somebody to do something that they wouldn't normally do. And I think that's that's where you know the law says uh uh it's it's something that a reasonable person would believe that they were likely to do otherwise. And that's why you say you confirm that they're gang members, they have a criminal history of doing something, you have surveillance that shows them out on the blocks, you know, handing packages to people, and then the people go out onto the streets and they're making deals, whatever. That's that's evidentiary. And then if you, you know, pull up and say, Hey, I'm trying to help this dude uh, you know, make a little cash, I'm just trying to buy for him. I don't want to mess with anything, and they're willing to sell them dope. I don't think a reasonable person, uh, if you pull up to a reasonable person and said, Hey, I you know, got this guy that I'm trying to hook up and want to see if you would sell him some dope, I don't think a reasonable person would try to find him some dope. Yeah. You know, so uh it it it was pretty clear cut in my case. Um, the manipulation really comes at the end. Because um, and it's still part of the law enforcement process, because again, if you cooperate, you get a pretty significant break in the feds, and if you don't, you get a pretty significant hammering in the feds. This was also a conspiracy case. So again, if if I were given any leverage to make a determination who got what, I would have had a lot more disparate sentences than what ended up happening. I mean, it almost became a famous case because the sentences were were so harsh, but it's because it was a big case and and when you bring violent acts of crime within it, then it it it kind of taints the perception of what people should get, even if you're part of the conspiracy and didn't commit a violent crime, or at least didn't get caught committing a violent crime. Because some of these guys are you know claiming to be a crip, but obviously there's all kinds of levels of that, you know. These guys at the top that are doing, you know, quarter million dollars a a week in product, and you got other dudes down here who essentially are the guys that would meet me at the car wash, wash my car, and introduce me to people. I mean, and and they're all getting the same kind of hammering through a conspiracy case, and there's there's a lot of debate about how that should work. Um, but but the way that it works in order for you to get out of having something that is a similar sentence is that you cooperate. And so I've been back and forth on on the level of cooperation too, because I I it it pisses me off watching somebody get somebody's mother get murdered or whatever in a neighborhood, a poor neighborhood, and then no one wants to speak out on like some dude. If it was your mother, you'd be begging these fools to talk. At the same time, especially after experiencing this, where I'm doing all this work for a better part of two years in my own city. I can't imagine doing something like this in in my own neighborhood, and then expecting to just go back and sleep peacefully and and be back in my neighborhood with them knowing that I was the one that set this thing into motion. So that's that's the conundrum that they all have to face. So that's where I think it really becomes a the manipulation happens because they're like, okay, well, if you don't do this, then you're getting a hammering that sometimes is worse than it should be.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

So worse than it should be. Yeah. Is there a most dangerous part that that didn't make it into your book? And it and if so, what what was the situation? Why didn't it go in the book?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah, so sort of an easy one and and sort of uh evading your question at the same time. So forgive me. Uh so I I originally wrote the book in 20 something, 2013, something like that. It was the first time the first version of the book was was authored, uh, before I started really writing a lot, which is why I ended up rewriting it in 2020, because uh, you know, you as a in when you start becoming a writer, you start seeing all the crazy flaws, especially after doing it for 10 more years. Uh, but in the original book, there was a significant occurrence that happened. Um, and and it was that when I leave the fishbowl, the fishbowl was about a 20-minute-ish, 15 to 20 minute drive from my house. So we would do, I say we I would do heat runs anytime that I would come or go, I would do heat runs on my way in and out, especially out. Once you're in that neighborhood or in that vicinity, it ended up kind of working my way outside of that uh neighborhood. Um, and you're leaving to go home, you obviously want to make sure you don't have a tail. So I would go out a certain way, take a left, take a left, take a left, and take a left. And that last left, if you still have somebody on your six, there's a problem. So I would do that, right? I would do that a number of times on my way home. Instead of just saying, hey, this is going to be a quick 17-minute drive, I would I would make sure I was doing a couple of those little stops on the way to make sure I was absolutely not being followed. Um, and one of these times, and I had checked my six, mind you, uh, but one of these times I was coming in and had gone uh uh on my way home, and there's one of these roads that's a little bit more rural, I would say, road, just less populated. On one side there was some businesses, and on the right side there was a tree line, and behind the tree line was another neighborhood, but otherwise, you know, it was two-lane road. And as I was coming down the road, my rear window got shot out, and I was about halfway home, which is far beyond, far beyond the point where I would normally have felt I needed to check my six again. I felt like I'd already done that.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

And so at the time it freaked me out. I immediately pulled off into uh to get cover into the industrial complex or the businesses, and then I then I got pissed and I'm pulling my weapon out and I'm flying through that neighborhood, my gun out the window like an idiot, and trying to figure out who did this. Never could figure out who did it, which is precisely why I didn't put it in the book, because it seemed so anticlimactic. I never, even after the case wrapped, could get anybody to claim that they were the ones that did it. Um, you know, I had to come up with some funky reason why uh a rock would have hit the side of my rear window and you know, I need it replaced on an undercover vehicle or whatever to get that thing fixed. Uh, but uh I it it was seems like an anticlimactic story. And it's the only reason why I I included it in the in the rewrite because I felt like it kind of helped illustrate kind of how games work. And I told a different story about when I was a cop and you know, walked into a a house that had just finished getting shot up and was super fresh, whatever. But that's why I didn't include it and it and it was a significant thing. I wasn't hit, obviously, and I just think it's freaking weird that I never found out who did it.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Wow. And based on the angle it came in, where where did it exit or did it not exit?

SPEAKER_01 41:14

It so it didn't actually exit, it hit, it looks like it hit and then probably fell because it hit at the base of the window, almost where the uh the frame of the window and the door meet. Yeah, and that's what broke the window, but the bullet actually fragmented there. It just didn't go in, it just almost hit, and then probably with all the swerving and whatever it was, I don't know what caliber it was. I I couldn't tell that, but didn't actually retrieve the bullet itself because it hit more of the door frame and door. It just had enough of the window to where the window would shatter, obviously, when it hit it as well at that angle.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Would it be your guess that it was aimed at you or was it over there or something?

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Uh I I again I don't know. I mean, it would have been uh it would have been the worst possible time to for me to have you know some idiot at their house doing target practice in their backyard and have a stray bullet go during that time of my life. So I I honestly I don't know because I couldn't find someone that could explain it.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

That's frightening. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

It just puts you on a different level of awareness and concern where you know I've kind of was doing good then, I felt pretty smooth, and then that happens, and you just start wondering again like where is this coming from? What's going on?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

I mean, the rest of that car ride home, you gotta be thinking, am I followed, even though I don't, I might not see that I'm followed or not. Or how how was it? How was that car ride home?

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Yeah, and well, it it was it was I was pissed still, but I it that neighborhood that was off to the right had no association directly that I knew of with the other with the fishbowl neighborhood, but it was an older poor neighborhood, also. So I thought, well, if they figured out where I was and are trying to get me on route, that's kind of a weird thing, too. And whether or not they were aiming for me, I mean, anybody trying to shoot somebody through a moving vehicle is already an idiot, which would have aligned with a lot of these dudes, you know. So I don't know what they were shooting at, or if they were shooting at me, I don't know. But that was that was the weirdest mystery.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

All right, that's that's crazy. And there's easier ways. If they wanted you, there's easier ways to get you. They could have waited, right. Okay, so that makes sense. Absolutely. Still scary. So how do you the how do you manage fear when showing fear is is one thing that can get you killed? Do you have a plan for it?

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Yeah, that's that's a great question because um there's kind of uh kind of two aspects to it. One is uh one is the airplane theory, which I'll explain in a minute. And the other is just keeping your eye on the mission itself. And, you know, it's like anything that you want to accomplish. If you start going off track to where it doesn't align with where you're trying to go in terms of a goal or a completed project or whatever, you do get distracted. And so part of it was just remembering why I was there, which ended up changing in the end, ironically, but you know, it's honestly just salvaged that particular neighborhood in the beginning. And once we moved out of that neighborhood, it became salvaging all kinds of stuff and getting these violent guys off the street. And so staying focused on that mission is important and it keeps you thinking more about why you're doing it and not what you're doing at the time. But I associate most of this with my airplane theory, which is if you are trying to go jump out of an airplane for the first time and you're super nervous about whether you should do it or not, and you don't know if the parachute's going to, you got all these different questions. Once you jump, you just figure it out. Because that's really what that's really what it equates to is once I launched into this project, and as scared as I may have been on day one, I was less scared on day two and less scared and less scared because I was dealing with everything as they came, even the things that I couldn't anticipate, you know, like the dude opening the door with the shotgun.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

It's something that I that I if if this was like, hey, this is my first foray into doing Joe Blow undercover deal, and we just want to do a buybust or something, that would have been like, hell no, I'm not going to the back to this place. We're, you know, we're gonna have a SWAT team run through the front of the house.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

But but in in this case, it was part of a bigger thing to where I had already jumped out of the airplane and I just didn't have, when you talk about contingencies, obviously you have small little contingencies in your mind about this, this, this, but yeah, for the most part, there was not an option to back out. Uh, and I think that's kind of a personality trait, too. I'm I'm extremely myopic when it comes to deciding, hey, I want to do this. It's the same thing when I was a professional musician before I was a police officer. Yeah, the same thing, you know, people are like, man, you're going to you're going to college for for jazz. I mean, is that it's nuts? You know, what kind of money are you going to make doing that? I'm like, I'm just trying to get better. I don't want a plan B. If I have a plan B, I feel like I'll do less, I'll be less effective at my plan A. And I don't know if necessarily that's that's a true hypothesis, but in in my in my experience, it's it's been the way that I do it, where I'll find something I get passionate about and I dive into it, and everything else just gets thrown to the wayside. And this was no exception. This was absolutely something that I had been aspiring to do, something more significant, and had read tons of books by some authors who had done lots of great undercover work and was trying to learn as much as I could and teach myself how to do undercover buys and stuff. And this was like the Super Bowl of undercover work for me. So um it didn't make it more nerve-wracking to know that. It just made it, like I said, I'd already started. Like you've started, you've gotten this far. And and there was just no alternative. So I think between those two things, keeping the eye on the mission and just knowing that uh, you know, the plan B to exit doesn't exist helps you just do it. You have to do it. It's not something that you do, you get you have the the luxury of deciding if you want to do it or not. You're already doing it, so just do a good job about it.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

I love that. That airplane theory is awesome. All right, all right, Tegan. I had a guy on former CIA, Nick McKinley. He's been on my show a handful of times. Last episode he talked about something called physiological dive. And I love how he explained it because now I know what I have, right? And I never knew this. He said, put me on a beach staring at the water, and my mind goes a million miles an hour. But he he's a former uh para uh paratrooper, parascue. He said, but put me in the back of a plane to jump out at 3 a.m. and my mind is crystal clear focused. And I think you just hit on that when you gave your when you gave your analogy there. I'm just curious, physiological dive. Did you have that when you would go on these deals? Or did you were you never nervous? Or what did that what did that feel like?

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Yeah, so I mean, I mean, you're essentially talking about the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, which and and you would know this too, being a cop, is it's something that's gonna happen during times of stress, and your body will help you to focus even when you feel like you can't focus and you're not sure if you're gonna be able to do it, it will carry you through some of those dangerous situations. Um, I I I absolutely felt like you know, you sometimes will get so overly focused that you have to train yourself to put your head on a swivel. Because we'd be we we would have certain circumstances where something would happen that we didn't expect. We get in this house, they lock it up, and then we realize, oh, our guy's not here yet. So now we're hanging out with all these fools that don't know us, and you know, whatever. So, and that just puts you in a different situation. So, what your sympathetic nervous system is gonna do, it's it's your adrenaline dump, you know, you get that oh, oh crap feeling, and then you're getting a little bit of tunnel vision, audio exclusion, you feel like you're jittery, you know, little things, but that's your body doing something healthy. Your body's preparing you for battle, essentially, or to protect yourself or heighten intuitive senses. It's doing all those things for you because you're recognizing you're in that situation. So once you know that that's what's happening, it also can put your mind at ease. There's been those first times where, you know, the first fight I get in as a as a cop, you know, I feel like my legs are gonna go out. I'm like, what the hell? I mean, I'm looking forward to this moment, and now it feels like my legs are getting weak, but it's because my sympathetic nervous system is kicking in. And, you know, you're gonna get all those things that help you hyperfocus and prepare yourself for potential pain or battle or you know, dealing with a tough situation. So um, yes, it there is hyper focus. There's absolutely hyper focus, and a lot of my ritual was in driving to the hood where I would either I would start quiet, just driving, thinking about what I'm what I'm gonna do, breathing, you know, just trying to figure that out. I'd get halfway there and then would roll down the windows and crank up the hard tunes and just get myself into a mindset where I'm gonna go kick somebody's ass. Not literally, but you know, in in that in that kind of mindset, so that I kind of have all those things kind of working in my favor.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Yeah, makes sense. Okay, a a World Series poker champion that I interviewed turned me on to this concept. He explained what happens with the carotid artery, and and it's so fascinating because he said you'll never watch poker again the same. He said, When when somebody's making a big call, and I'm not a poker player, so I'm probably gonna mess up the terms, but I but I know what he was saying is they'll cover they'll cover their carotid artery because from my understanding, you can't control it if you're nervous. Okay, so so I get that. So now I see it. I see players will cover that. Totally got it. What in training, or what did you pick up? What did you study? What did you learn? What how did you apply that physical part of it to your job? Like you mentioned, what you would do, you would do some meditation. Did you were there any other things that you did that they prepared you for, like make sure you cover your eyes, don't cover your eyes, whatever, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Yeah, interestingly, I didn't get very much training. I mean, they had some training that essentially it ended up being just hand-be-down experiences, you know, when you went to the narcotics unit or gang, you know, you would just kind of learn how people did it. And that's why I did so much reading to find out how the guys who had so much success had done it and learn a little bit about them. And, you know, we didn't have podcasts back then, but it would have been a great source of material to find out how these undercover guys did that. Um, that was really it was really a mindset for me. Again, just focused on the mission, having zero backup half the time, but really having no plan B in terms of the option to leave or to say I'm done or whatever. I had to be literally told that uh the case was gonna end, you know, before it ended, or else I would have probably kept going because that was my mindset. Um, and you know, leveraging uh something in the uh uh in my favor toward the opponent along these same lines, which I was unfamiliar with, that carotatory. That's super fascinating. Uh, I would leverage silence because I think what a lot of cops tend to do in undercover work is they over talk and they try to explain who they are and they give reasons why they should believe them, and they they never say no. You know, there's all these different kind of elements to somebody who just really wants to get this deal done. And so I would be quiet a lot of times, and they would be asking me a bunch of questions, and I would just look at them. You're asking me this question, like you, you, you're in this game and you're asking me these kind of questions. I mean, and it puts them on the defensive and it makes them over talk and and keeps me from having to talk so much because really somebody in this game would not be over talking and would not be asking, like, how do I know that's really your name? How do I know you really live in whatever? You know, show me something. That was like, are you freaking kidding me, dude? You want to do you know, we're doing an illicit business deal here. You want to really talk about exchange of information, you fool. So there was less, it was less of the of the banter and more of the of the pause, which makes them think maybe I shouldn't have asked that, or obviously they're wanting me to say something else, and it puts it's almost like a volley, you know. Hey, you hit the shot, and I'm standing at the net, and I'm like, no, it's still yours. Now you can say say something else, because the the silence will prompt that a lot of times.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Did you did you ever even the slightest mess up ever?

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Oh, I messed up all the time.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

What's your name? Did you ever like say the wrong name and then go, oh no, no? Like, like what is a mess? What does a mess up look like? What did it look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Oh, there's plenty of mess ups, man. Oh, plenty. Yeah, like I said, this is not a Batman story. Um I mean, there were mess ups all the way to uh hitting the wrong house when we're trying to round people up to uh just man, um trying to think of like mess up your identity is more not really, nah, not really. Uh because I I gave so little that I don't even think I ever gave anyone my last name. I mean, it didn't even get further than that. Because but and this is why though. Um unlike unlike someone working for a a CIA operation overseas or something that's trying to get some kind of uh some kind of relationship going, these guys work with that bloke as kind of a a practice. I mean, some of these dudes know each other by a street name, and that's kind of it. Unless they remembered their name from junior high before they quit school, that's just how they know them. So, and my whole my whole thing was I'm going into this thing saying no more than yes, because again, I was determined to not look and sound like a cop. And not to mention I'd learned from experience trying to learn how to do undercover work. I mean, you make those mistakes and you talk like a dork and whatever, you oversplain yourself. Uh, so a lot of it was just about like, no, you're not getting that. Would you like to cancel this deal? Because I'm fine with that, because I I'm just gonna go somewhere else and do business somewhere else. And if they said this, do business somewhere else, I'd be cool. And then they eventually would come back to me because they'd realize I was making somebody else money. I'd rather be making money off. So it's just a matter of being patient and knowing that I have this information back here. They did know that I was on probation for uh a uh an aggravated assault and and had to go piss in a cup. And the only reason they knew that is because I used to actually show up once a month on Saturdays at the courthouse and go down and take a piss test. And I would see a bunch of those different dudes or people that were associated, and then they would kind of be able to say, Yeah, man, I saw tea down there or whatever. It would just be part of the you know reinforcement of the persona without necessarily giving them too many details. That's also what kept me from doing dope or whatever. It's like, man, I ain't going back, no pen for you. You know, I'm on probation. I ain't I ain't that I'm playing with that. I'm doing business and that's it. You want to do business, cool. You don't want a business, let me know because we're wasting time right here. We're you know, we're all we're doing is drawing attention.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

So uh, you know, that's answers your question with a too much of a tangent.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

No, I love it. I love it. So, okay, door closes, you're in the house, you got all this money, whatever, make up the number. 20, you got$20,000. That the guy's not there yet. So now you you had alluded to the fact that you might have to just hang around. Okay, so you hang around, you're in conversation with these guys. What are y'all talking about? Like, what would be good conversation?

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Yeah. So this is this is the good and the bad. So in that particular instance, I still talked about a lot of the same stuff. And at the same time, when when I came out of this, or even during it, I realized even the guys that I was getting to know that we were trying to establish a relationship, we would talk about a lot of the same things that dudes that age talk about. It's all the same stuff. If you take the sociopath out of the gang member, then you have a dude that likes to drink beer and smoke a cigar and talk crap about the whoever your favorite NFL team is, and who's a better quarterback than this, and so-and-so's gonna win, and you got to introduce me to some of those girls you know over on the west side, man. You know, this and this. It's the same stuff that dudes in their 20s talk about. And so it was um in in the instance where I was stuck in that house, it was a little weirder because some of the guys were trying to kind of puff, you know, during that, during that time. Yeah, uh, but uh they were still playing video games, which is how I the other way I established street cred was beating somebody's ass at Madden, you know, because I don't have to spend I don't have to spend five grand to do that. I I would go I would spend time going down to the blocks asking for somebody that I knew was not there on purpose, so that I had an excuse to engage with the guys that were there. Either do a small deal and say, Man, I'll help you out, or or don't do any deal and just bring a uh a pack of magnums and you know, split a beer and well, what y'all playing, and then get in on a game or whatever. And then that was kind of you know helping helping the the rapport build. A lot of these guys are are just like any other people. I mean, it's I think a lot of us uh smart folks realize that within different cultures and countries and belief systems and everything, there's a lot that we have, there's a common thread between humans, and we all try to to to strive to find those. At least the good people try to find those so that you know the commonality gives us more to talk about and more progress. But yeah, before this, I think most of us would have agreed that if you're a violent criminal, uh you're excused, please, from this conversation because there's obviously nothing in common. And turns out there's just as much in common with those guys, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

That's intriguing. Wow. Yeah. So right now on the spot, Instagram live, I open it up and I go, Tegan, you teach a 10-minute course to you so you gotta do it on the spot. Teach a 10-minute course. What what are you the most comfortable that you could just go for 10 minutes and teach an audience about? What do you love, like what do you love the most?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

Um, you know, and that's an interesting question. And I think it would change about every five or ten years throughout my life, but I think that's my personality. But I think right now what I'm focused on is trying to trying to engage people enough to where they think deeper about subjects like this. Um, I I I've lived on opposite sides of the line that most people don't have an opportunity to experience. I I spent, you know, as a life as a professional musician touring with bands where I was the minority and you know, the only little white kid, I was the youngest one, everything else. Went to music school, was a professional musician, touring, doing all this stuff with all these artsy fartsys and living in, you know, living with artists and and then cut all my hair off and went joined a police department and then doing that, which is the type A thing versus the creative, and then and then doing the undercover work, where it combines them both, and then left and started a company and you know, built it to multi-million dollar company. And it I just the experiences that I've had around people, I think are profound only because I've I've been in environments where most guys like me don't get to actually witness. Obviously, I can't be different people, but yeah, nobody can. So all I ask in most of the time, like I've been I I write quite a bit, uh, you know, was recently hired to be a columnist and I write, you know, about three times a week. They're all creative um articles, they're articles, but I usually start with a a narrative where you're actually reading a story that illustrates a point and and just explains that look, it's not exactly like you think it was. And I'm not trying to change minds, I'm trying to deepen them, you know, just to make you think a little bit more like I actually never thought of it that way. I may not change my mind, but I appreciate the point more. And and I think the the more we can all get to a point where we understand each other, even if we don't agree, then it'll be less, you know, less contentious.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

That's awesome. Very cool. So if you strip away, so let's strip away the uniforms, the gang colors, all the labels, and all the facade, right? What did the fishbowl teach you about human nature?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

Um, well, some of the bad stuff it taught is that you know, people are going to pick the money over common sense a lot of times. But I think that's human nature. You see that in business, you see that in friendships, uh, you know, all that kind of stuff where people will prioritize something that puts themselves ahead. But moreover, you find the the human aspects too, where you have to remember at all times that there's a the original purpose behind infiltrating these guys and eradicating them was that there are people that literally live in those neighborhoods as prisoners. And I think poor neighborhoods get a bad rap because they they do have rampant crime, but the rampant crime is being committed by select people, not most people. And so I can't imagine living in a neighborhood like that where you couldn't just send your six-year-old up to the bus stop without an escort because obviously there's guns and people selling dope, and there's a there's a no-tell motel in the next block that's got prostitutes literally standing out in the driveway. And I mean, it's a what what a horrible existence that is. And then to add the violent crime on top of that, just be worried about stray bullets and drive-by's and everything else. It's just a it's a horrible way to live. So it's it's appreciable to know that these people worry about the same things we do. Again, they just want, they just want a safe place for their kids to play. They they don't want to have to be overly protective and you know, raise a kid that's been sheltered and then goes nuts, like, like we all would. There's always that balance, but they're they have so many limitations there that they're just trying to find creative ways out of it. And I think that's you know, that's a that's a common thing. And we're all trying to raise better kids and create a better environment for the next gen. And that's that's a common theme too. And hopefully some of these cats that get out also feel like that's part of their plight, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

Yeah. Yeah. So you've had a ch you've had a change of heart. Right. I mean, you didn't go into this work saying like you you were you wanted to put the bad guys away, right? That's that's I mean, that's very very, very simply put. And in it, something happened. Something uh maybe Cross an invisible line, maybe it was an event that happened, maybe it was years after, I don't know. But where did you then say, Hey, I I want to give proceeds of my book to to to the kids of incarcerated parents? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

There. So once we rounded everybody up, we had this big operation, everybody gets rounded up. Not all of them got picked up at the same time, but over the course of a few weeks we got all we start doing debriefs, and because it's a conspiracy case. So you want to find out what people know, what they're willing to say, get a background. You know, we're asking lots of just general background questions. And I kept finding myself sitting in this room with one cat in particular, had three different kids during the same year, three different mothers. Couldn't remember the middle name of one or two of them. I'm pretty sure it's this, but they spell it like this. I'm not sure. And it to me was dumbfounding because me having a kid changed my world, it changed your goals, it changed your outlook, it changes everything that you've ever imagined. So to watch these people spit out kids and be flippant about it was was kind of crazy to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

So when the after this happened, you know, typically undercover work is is a thankless job because typically you stay undercover, that's just the deal. So when Fishbowl wrapped up and all these guys got hit, and this, you know, all this dope, whatever, this guns got taken up. We saw nine cold case murders, it's all this great stuff. The FBI agent, the AUSA, the you know, the the ASAC for the Dallas Division, the gang unit uh sergeant, all these people are on the news and you know, taking news conferences answering questions and all stuff. I had nothing to do with any of that. Obviously, it was it was my case, and I, you know, did the vast majority of the stuff, but that was kind of the nature of the beast, which is fine. And then I got nominated for some kind of award. And when I got nominated for the award from two anonymous cops, I ended up getting an officer of the year, and then the newspaper caught win, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then it became kind of a known thing that I was involved in that. So once that happened, people started saying, Man, you should write a book, man. This is a crazy story. And I'm like, I don't have any interest in writing a book. I mean, I liked writing at the time, but I wasn't a writer and certainly didn't want to make this case into something that was about me because it never was about me, even in the beginning. However, I met this guy who put my past experience remembering these debriefs together with the purpose. And he said, Hey man, have you ever heard of this place, Hope Farm? It's like right outside the hood where you worked. And I was thinking, no, but that's weird that I hadn't heard of it because I felt like I'd been all over the place there.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Well, this place in particular had converted a couple of dope houses and put a fence around it, put a playground in between it, and started an after-school program to mentor children of incarcerated parents. They do everything from uh school tutoring. Uh, they have they have to stand in line and be accountable to a man when they come in after school and tell them about their conduct grades for the day. Their teacher has to sign the little things, and they either get punishment or encouragement or whatever from you know, from a man figure. Uh, they teach them how to, you know, look you in the eye and shake your hand firmly. They teach you how to fill out job applications, they start them at like five or six years old and work on through. These kids were eventually working through the program, graduating high school, going to college, getting a degree, coming back there and working. So I thought, man, what a beautiful program. So I've it's all I've done is leverage uh pro existing programs like that. And what they're doing all the brilliant work, obviously. Um, but I I said that's a reason to write the book. Uh, and so I that's why I I donate all the all the profits from the book to go to charities that mentor children of incarcerated parents because I figured out during this whole process that arresting everybody is necessary, but I equate it to the people that call our call, you know, my company and say, hey man, we got this thing. We want we need a team to go in, we're gonna rescue all these uh sex trafficked people. And they and I'm like, okay, what's the plan for afterward? And they're like, well, I don't know, we're just I mean, we just need to go get them out. I'm like, that's that's great, but it's not gonna work because you're gonna put people's lives at risk, both the people that you're going in and and X-Villing, and as well as the entry teams and all that kind of stuff, but you don't have a plan for afterward. And I realized that's exactly what my whole situation was. I went in to say it salvage a neighborhood, and then realized that with all these kids, we had 104 kids left fatherless after we arrested those 51 people. So then I realized, well, in 20 years, somebody's gonna have to go undercover and arrest all these kids. I mean, how do you st how do you stop this from just being a snowball?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:15

You know, so that's that's the point in which I realized, man, this is a great reason to write a book. I, you know, I know people, most people don't get rich writing books either. I was a professional musician. I know, I know the deal. The creative arts are a tough place to go in and think you're gonna make a million bucks anyway. I said, Well, this would be a good reason to to push it proudly forward and try to get people to purchase it because it it really is for a good cause, and hopefully they'll like the story while they're at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:41

Right. Incredible. What what do you learn from that? Like what's your from from work and in that space? What does that all teach you?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:51

Which the in the charitable space or the writing space?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

The the charitable space for incarcerated kids. I mean, what oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:00

It's amazing. It's man, you talk about you it it's the it's those times where you think, oh man, I I thought I was stressed about XYZ until you meet these kids and realize how resilient they're forced to be. You know, you got a seven-year-old, you know, with no with no parent. Their their mother's got all these other issues, their dad was either killed or put in prison, and they got, you know, and and it just sets up a set of circumstances that you have to appreciate where you're at and and admire them for the gumption they have, and even more so admire the programs that take the time to be patient and teach them accountability, which is the one thing a lot of those kids end up lacking, which pushes them into the gang life, teaching them that their ceiling is not here, it's way up here.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

Oh that's incredible. So if you have a root, let's say you have a 14-year-old who's headed directly into that lifestyle. What have you learned anything that you can say to them that would actually land?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:05

I wish I knew one thing that would land because I'd use it all the time. Uh, but I think it's important to get to know them. I think uh too many people will spend time lecturing, and this goes for adults for that matter. You know, if you have a problem and you come to me, if all I do is talk to you about ways to solve your problem, then you still walk away frustrated because you still have a problem. I've just been feeding you stuff when you you would rather me elicit the answers from you by asking questions and getting to know you, and then asking you how you feel, and then why you would do this, this, or this if that's how you feel, and just prompt questions by becoming interested and involved in your situation. That's what I think the kids really need. They need attention, they need proper attention and care from somebody who's uh genuinely interested in their lives, and then they'll be more apt to listening to a lot of your advice afterward.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:03

Important. If policy makers actually lived in the fishbowl for a month, what laws or priorities do you think would change? If any.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:21

Um specific policies or laws. Um I th I think there would be I mean, obviously there's a lot that needs to change. I think there would just be more sympathy, more uh even, you know, empathy or sympathy in in whatever case that may be, um, which I think is important in during a sentencing process or during a prosecutor process. I also think that um, especially on the police side, when you get to the point where you are having, you have a detective or an officer that's putting together a case to send to a DA or an AUSA, I think there's still a giant problem with people becoming so focused on getting that person that they put together this strong case that deserved to be looked at a little more closely and needs a little more discernment in terms of either how severely to prosecute or whether to prosecute. I still think there's a lot of this, first of all, there's a lot of amazing detectives out there, and I know many of them, and they do fantastic work. So this is not a blanket statement. I also know that there are detectives that will pick up on something, even within the department I worked, where I said, hey, I was at this guy's house and he told me blah, blah, blah, this is how that murder happened. He's like, nah, I already got somebody. I'm thinking, you don't even want to have this conversation? I'm telling you firsthand information, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

Um, and so it's kind, it's not just the old school. I think sometimes people will rush to to try to get a case solidified. And even obviously we have to get rid of the crooks that do it on purpose that just want to cover up something, you know, a Karen Reed case type thing where they're just imbeciles.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

But also people that feel like they're so statistic, they feel like they're so statistically driven that they make decisions that are too hastily made. They just they need to take their time and try to keep an open mind. I think it would help them to understand where people come from and focus on how re rehabilitatable they are, because it's it's tough to tell. But if you're in and around some of these people, you might have a better idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

Yeah. Let's talk about psychological residue that remains with you from just from fishbowl.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

Yeah, um, you know, and that's been many years now, but it's uh it was a an emotional, I would say, even emotionally devastating event when we rounded everybody up. Um, one, because I had expounded so much energy into creating the cases and developing relationships, that as an aside, I felt like some of those relationships were pretty genuine. Then being forced to say, this is the end of the case, after almost two years of doing it full time, no days off, all this crazy stuff happening and working my way through, just trying to, just trying to rectify that is well, this is over. Now, what am I supposed to do? Was one part. And the other part, just wrapping my head around the fact that there was going to be so much emotional toil over the fact that these guys were going away and I had no control over those sentences. Um, it was it was really impactful, like way more than I thought it would be. Um, not that it was wrong, it wasn't wrong, but it's you know, it's sad. The situation itself is it's terrible. It's a terrible situation. So uh I wouldn't let myself get overly emotionally involved during that process. So I think it was just pent-up emotion. So to this day, there's still the guys there that I wish I could talk to and you know, just sit down and you know, get to know and explain my side and understand them better and whatever. Um, you know, it's it's just not it's not a regret, but it would be something that I think would would probably help me. Uh, if I knew it would help them, maybe I would go poke the bear, but you know, I don't know if it helped them or not. So um, you know, it is something I'll never forget in terms of, you know, emotionally. Uh it was it was a really tough time for uh for me and my family.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

Yeah. Hate the sin, love the sinner. How does that sit with you? How does that sit with you and what you saw?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

Yeah, I mean, I think that I think that I mean it's easier said than done.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:18

I think I got cloth, I think I got close to that, but there were still also people that I wished would never get out. So that kind of excludes me from that saying in in an explicit way. So I have to admit, my humanity there, there were still some really bad dudes that I thought, man, this fool just never needs to get out. Um, although I still hope that if they when they get out, that they still figure it out. It just, you know, in my opinion, seemed like it's gonna be a hard turn to to the left for them. Um so yeah, that's exact that's a good application for sure. As as close as you can get to that, I think that would help all of us.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:59

Yeah, it would certainly help us, yeah. No, no question about it. How how old's your son now?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:05

Uh my son's 30 now.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:07

Thirty? Yes, okay, so you so you mentioned 10. Okay, so he was 10 when you were okay, got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:15

Yeah, 10 and he was 10 and 11 years old back then when I was doing going through all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:20

What do you if I called him tonight and said I interviewed your dad on the podcast today, because he doesn't know we're having this podcast, and you weren't allowed on the call, and I and I said, tell tell me about your dad. What do you what do you think he would say?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

That's super interesting. One, he wouldn't pick up. Even if he knew, even if he knew you, he probably wouldn't pick up. He's like, nah, he's an introvert, so he's like, nah, no conversation, it's fine. Yep, I really however if his uh if his feet were held to the fire, um man, I I honestly I don't know. Uh it's not a question I've I've ever asked him. It's a great question on your part. I think as a dad, all I can do is hope that that I gave him inspiration. Because I, you know, our interests, we have a lot of aligned interests. You know, we love sports and we love, you know, talking about, you know, we sip whiskey and talk about little things that we have in common, but I I don't think that his interests are in, you know, we have a common interest in music, but law enforcement's not something he ever thought to do. Certainly, you know, having a security or investigations firm or any, I mean, he's not into any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:34

So I I can only hope that that uh, you know, I I I wish for him independence and uh to find something that he's passionate about doing, uh, to find contentment in that. And I can only hope that he would say that there was some level of inspiration that came from watching that happen. Um, although he was, you know, during fishbowl, he was in his own thing. You know, he was a he was a quarterback and playing football and you know, basketball and whatever, you know, as a kid. So and I wasn't trying to make a giant deal out of what I was doing. So he knew what I was doing, but wasn't you know, wasn't forced into the to the corner and like, hey man, we got this big risk. Because even when we talked about walking different ways and all that, he just knew it was kind of part of the deal. I I think any more, any much older, he would have probably appreciated that level of of uh situation, situational danger more, but that's all I can hope. I I I've never asked him that. I I feel like that'd be I mean, he'd probably tell me because he's a he's a good dude, but I don't it feels like a little self-serving to even ask that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:44

Yeah. Well, the the fact that you said sipping whiskey together as a dad, and I've and I've got four, much younger, but I've got four. Yeah, that's uh my hope is I can say that they're doing that when they're 30 with me. So that in and of itself helps me understand what that answer would be. Because if you're still together, I mean that's awesome. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:04

Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, it's it's super fun to just yeah, to just have a bro, a couple bro moments and sip and talk about what you're drinking, but doing it responsibly, still talking about, you know, you're gonna put 10 bucks on this game, whatever. Like best friends, you know, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

I love it. So my plan is to have you on a couple more times because we got a lot more questions to go through. But let let me end on let me end on this one today.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:31

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:34

What did your family see change in you from the day, so from day one that you started fishbowl till till now, if I asked them, what would they say?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Um well there was a point during the operation where my wife had to essentially draw a line in the sand even even that far back. Um she essentially said, Hey, you're you know, you're I I think we were at a family gathering somewhere, and I had to step off and take another call. And I was super stressed about how it was going down. And when I get stressed, I'm probably an asshole. I know that, and I'm not trying to be sometimes I'd be self-aware, like, hey, don't take this out on the people you love here. Just be stressed and then take a breath and re-engage. You know, I've I've learned that over the years, certainly. Um, and can warn people like, hey, I'm just kind of in a bad mood for the sake of a bad mood. My wife and I get along perfectly because we're transparent like that. During that time, I I was inundated with stuff that was happening that was causing so much stress about how am I gonna pull this off? What am I gonna do? What's the plan for this? I'm not getting any sleep. I'm the only person that's doing this. Um, that she started saying, uh, you're no, you no longer seem like the man I'm married. I was like, whoa, there's the line. So I'm like, okay. So, you know, I I I couldn't get her to, I mean, she it was in such a grandiose fashion that I had shifted. You know, things like she mentioned the way uh, you know, so obviously some of the terminology that I used was kind of carrying over because I spent so much time. Um and I think just my mannerisms and the way that I was treating her, because you know, sh I married way, way up. So uh I've always treated her like a queen because she's a queen, she's amazing. Um, and I once I start forgetting things or acting like I'm, you know, people are getting on my nerves and whatever, that that can happen, and it it happens, that's fine. But when it happens incessantly and she feels like she's no longer being appreciated, or I'm treating my kid different, or my mannerisms have completely changed, then she just had to say, like those words were a showstopper. So I immediately just tried to figure out okay, I gotta reframe how I'm going forward with this thing because I have to keep my priorities in line at the same time, separating what I'm trying to do with what I'm obligated to do in my own life, which is maintain a fantastic marriage. And so since that time, I think uh taking that on, being able to finish it, understanding that we we share kind of a compassionate heart and and I'm better at being able to explain, you know, how I'm feeling at any given time. She already knows if I say, you know, something, something's stressing me out, or I didn't get sleep, she automatically knows how to handle that. And that's why I'm transparent and talking about it. And the same with her, if some she's got something on her mind, or I know if she needs help or she needs me to back the hell off for a couple hours or whatever, and then we get along pretty amazingly. Most we're kind of a model, model couple.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:53

Yeah, that's so awesome. How how do you find the rush? So that your whole that whole fishbowl was uh had to be a rush. What do you how do you get your rush now? I'd be and this is just an extension of the last question, and then we'll end. But how I'm trying to know how how what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

Yeah, it's a different, I get different rushes. You know, I'm old, but uh, you know, when I when I quit the police department early, I I jumped off and tried something like starting a business out of nothing. So that's a challenge in of itself, too. You know, you just put all of your energy and all of your time into figuring out the best way to run a business, and then you start hiring people. What's the best leadership? How do we get the most out of people and still feel like they're also getting what I need to, you know, from me? And um, and I, you know, like I said, I've been been writing, and then I pursue ideas and try to think about this idea backwards and how some creative ways that I can write. I'm I've always been a creative, so I was the atypical cop, being a creative going into the cop world as opposed to the other way around. So uh right now, my rush really comes from completing. Projects like that, you know, and I get something that I wrote that I feel really good about. I've got, I'm working on a couple books. Uh, so you know, things like that, you know, when it's when I get something nailed down that I really feel good about, and that those are my rushes. They're not physically as taxing and and uh but mentally they're super challenging because it's just yeah, a new endeavor that I'm diving into. Just one accomplishment after the next and getting better and seeing that progress.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:26

Yeah. It's it's almost scary how exactly similar we are. Minus minus music and and fishbowl for you. Everything else is the same all the way up to we both married up.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:42

Our lives are I'm telling you, man, our lives are the same. So much of what you said is is is uh same same here. Owning businesses, the podcasting, all of it. Um the the creative. I was a marketing major and had businesses when I was real young, and then I went into law enforcement, right? So we've it's just interesting how we're we're sort of