Policing the Police: Rampart, Corruption & Accountability

What really happens when the police police themselves?

In this episode, we sit down with retired Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant Marlon Marrache—an immigrant from Peru who grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley and built a career that took him from patrol to the inner workings of Internal Affairs, and ultimately to the Office of the Chief.

With over two decades in law enforcement, including 13 years investigating officer conduct, Marrache offers a rare, unfiltered look at the system most people never see. From his first impressions stepping into Internal Affairs to handling high-stakes investigations, he breaks down the realities behind police corruption, shocking misconduct, and the often misunderstood process of administrative investigations.

This conversation goes beyond headlines. We explore the dynamics of everyday traffic stops, how unfounded allegations can still leave lasting damage, and the harsh truth that sometimes the process itself can feel like the punishment—derailing careers, reputations, and lives even when officers are ultimately cleared.

Marrache also dives into the tension between accountability and brotherhood—what it really means to “police each other,” and how that plays out both on the streets and behind closed doors. We confront difficult topics like workplace discrimination, ethical decision-making under pressure, and the gray areas where right and wrong aren’t always clear.

Now a certified trainer for California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, Marrache continues to shape the next generation of law enforcement professionals—bringing lessons learned from the front lines of accountability. As host of The Marlon Marrache Show: Truth Behind the Badge, he remains committed to transparency and honest dialogue about policing.

This is a powerful, behind-the-scenes look at Internal Affairs—where every decision carries weight, and the truth is rarely simple.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Where you were sitting, I was there two years ago. And I got fired. And let me tell you. We have the police wrong. We got investigated wrong. We have to have checks and balances, man. What I would suggest is if you have body warm video, you better watch a body more video. Try to gather as much evidence as possible. So essentially your job is to be the best evidence gatherer possible.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Welcome everybody. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Juan Sephas from FitPD, and this is lineup with FitPD. You know, I did almost 30 years in law enforcement and I retired as a sergeant, and I seen just about every angle of the profession. Today I'd like to bring the stories that people don't really hear about. This podcast is about talking about the sacrifices that cops make every single day and the human beings behind the badge. I've also trained cops at the police academy for 20 almost 25 years. And in that time, I know for a fact that if we don't prepare people properly, that's when things happen, and that's when people get hurt. This podcast is about perspective, it's about the truth, and it's about peeling back that curtain just a little bit so that we can talk about some of the issues that are being encountered by law enforcement agencies across the nation. Well, today's guest is gonna peel back that curtain on one of these topics that's misunderstood often. And it's actually one of the hardest assignments to work in law enforcement, and that's policing the police. Internal affairs. And during that time, he spent thirteen years in internal affairs. Thirteen years. Now, he uh teaches for the uh peace officer and standards and training uh post for the state of California. He's got uh a couple of courses, one of them is conducting internal affairs investigations. So he's teaching senior investigators how to do a proper internal affairs investigation, which is gonna be very valuable to us today. In addition to that, he's got his own podcast. The Marlon Marache Show. He is the IA guy. Please help me welcome Marlon Marache. Marlon, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Hey man, thanks. Well, sorry about that. That's all right. Thank you, thank you for uh inviting me. So a couple of things to clarify the intro. Love it, love it. All right, all right. A couple of things. So it was in 2008 when I got introduced into the world of internal affairs. So you know, there's a couple of roles, and we'll talk about that as we enter the conversation. And then I retired as a sergeant, just like you, all right, uh, back in July of 2022. So I'm coming up on four years since retirement, and I totally forgot that I had an application in for a police lieutenant at Cal State University in Amigus Hills. And uh to make the long story short, because I'm sure we're gonna have a very good, long, fun conversation, uh, I applied. They convinced me. I actually didn't even want the job. I told them from the get-go, hey, you know what? Uh my my goal is to be a police attorney. I'm gonna take the bar, you know, and I got consulted things going on. I'm working as an expert witness on this case, coaching soccer, going to the beach with my dog. Life is great. Right. So I didn't want to do it, and somehow, somehow, within that 20-minute phone call, uh, they convinced me to take the uh interview. And so I did, and they offered me the job, and I lasted one year. One year. You're right. And one of the reasons why I decided to quit uh and resign is because you and I were talking about that four or five freeway. Yes. And so that four or five freeway from uh for all of you that are familiar with the four or five freeway at Vermont, which is right there in Carson, uh-huh, all the way to the San Francisco Valley, because I'm 818. 818 to the day I die, right? I live in uh Northridge. I gotta tell you, that drive on the way home was way over an hour. Uh you know, it was like an hour and a half, two hours. And I just kept telling myself, you know what, I'm chasing that carrot. Why am I doing this? Oh, and by the way, they tell me that uh Cal Pearce retirement is not five years vested, it's actually 10 years. 10. So I'm looking at myself, I'm going, you know what? I don't want to be in my 60s driving uh up and down uh the four or five. So you know what? I said uh I said goodbye, and that's when I started the podcast, and uh and here we are. So thank you for uh having me.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Here we are. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate it. Yeah, appreciate it. Now, um Marlon, let's talk a little bit about policing the police. When you hear that term, what what what uh what comes to mind?

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Uh well, a couple of things. Right off the bat is my motto, what I always think about is snowstone goes unturned. So we essentially have to get it right in terms of investigating our own. Yeah. Uh what also comes to mind is uh this emotional component that we don't think about uh enough. And what I mean by that is when you have small to medium-sized agencies, so let's just take maybe a hundred or less, fifty or less agencies throughout California, well, probably throughout the nation, right? When administration, the chief of police, makes a decision, you know what, we're gonna do an IA on this guy, on one of our officers, one of the rank and file. We have to make sure that if we do that, uh, it's the right thing to do. Because I'm here to tell you, and I've been teaching up and down the state of California since it's been three years, is that not everything has to be an IA. One, two, uh, when we decide to do that, we have to realize that it impacts everybody. Sure. So that decision, when you're round table and that particular decision, like, hey, we're gonna do an IA on Juan, we're gonna do an I on Marlin, you know what? Let's make sure that this is the right thing to do because guess what? The rumors are gonna start, uh, everybody's gonna know it's gonna impact tremendously the morale of the department. Sure. And so if we're talking about a policy violation, I mean, do we really have to do a full-blown IA? I don't know. And so those are the two things that come to mind is how to investigate our own and knowing that there's this emotional component, meaning that when we decide to do that, it's gonna impact uh the morale of the department. So, but we have to police our own. I am 100% on board with you know what, we got to investigate our own. We have to have checks and balances, man. It's a necessary evil. It is the necessary evil, absolutely. Uh, if you go back uh in times, the 40s, the 1950s, the 60s, the 70s, I mean, there's police departments like my beloved LAPD. I can tell you in the 60s it was super corrupt, right? Completely corrupt. Uh and if another thing I want to get out also is the fact that there is corruption, there is cops that cut corners, there is cops that act like criminals in uniform, that is a known fact. And the reason why I say that is because you have over 18,000 police agencies throughout the United States, and you have about north of 800,000 officers across the nation. So let's not kid ourselves. I mean, the fact of the matter is, yeah, there's corruption. It happens, you know. We we um uh hire from the human nature, I mean the human animal, I should say, right? Right, of course. So it's um it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

You know, I I'm glad you brought that up because not only does it happen in law enforcement, but I think it happens in all professions.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

We have you know less than 10%, maybe less than 2% law enforcement. I'm I'm not sure what the percentage is, but in any profession, well, I don't care if we're talking about doctors, librarians, or people that work at McDonald's, they're not doing the job the way it's supposed to be done. Correct. And we have that in police work, I suppose. Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yeah, and for the record, what I meant to say was that we're hiring from the human race.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

From the human race, what I meant to say. Just like everybody else hires from the human race.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Yeah, and the fact of the matter is that you and I can agree, and I'm sure your audience will know that uh when there is a law enforcement function uh that's newsworthy, it's gonna be sensationalized. Oh. As opposed to a doctor committing malpractice, a lawyer being disbarred, uh a nurse uh losing, you know, his or her license. Those things don't get sensationalized in the media, but if it's law enforcement, of course.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

It always does. Yes, it always does. Yeah. Now, in LAPD, how does a sergeant, because uh investigators are sergeants, correct? That is correct. How uh how does somebody get a job in internal affairs?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Good question. Uh for one, I don't think sergeants and detectives, by the way, there's detectives that also work in internal affairs. But I'm here to tell you that no one when they promote the sergeant's gonna say, oh my God, I cannot wait to go to internal affairs. That doesn't happen in LEPD, and it certainly doesn't happen probably in a lot of departments, meaning you're either gonna be voluntold, like, hey, right, you know, this is your uh, you're gonna have to go to IA. And so, but I will say this that particular assignment, you're gonna learn a lot. However, it's very self-serving for the sergeant. Uh, a lot of sergeants do it for a feather in the cap. Hey, if I take this position, I'm gonna promote to lieutenant. Some do it for the flexibility. You know what? I get to work Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday, 410 schedule. Hey, I'm home.

unknown 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

The weekends, it's flex, it works for the family, I get to see my kids, I can telecommute, work from home. So a lot of the reasoning why you're getting this job is based on your preference, right? It's for you, you're doing it for you. So it's been my experience that not many, I'm not gonna say all, but not many. A good portion of people, and you know what? I'm not gonna be a hypocrite, including me, you know. Hey, I want weekends off. Who doesn't want weekends off after work patrol and work graves and all that stuff? And so it's very self-serving to say that I'm doing this job just so I can, you know, satisfy and it benefits me and my family, as opposed to what? As opposed to being a really good investigator and getting to the bottom of the truth. And we do do that. We do. However, there is an art, there's a skill set, and there's experience that comes along with investigating uh your you know your own accused colleagues. Uh, so how does someone get there? Well, besides those self-serving reasons, yeah, I mean, go in there with the uh with the attitude and with the drive that, hey, um, I'm I'm here to help uh my fellow officers, you know, I'm here to help the department. You know, if we keep preaching transparency, well, you know what? I want to be part of that. You know, I want to be part of um uh of an organization that does show uh its purpose that we're trying to be uh transparent with the public, we're trying to have that trust with the public. And so those are very buzzword type of you know reasoning. But uh yeah, some people have the desire, but for the most part, it's probably because you want to promote.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Probably. Probably. Um you know, I found it interesting that there were people that uh were shoulder tapped to come up to uh work in internal affairs and they didn't have much investigative experience. Correct. Um and you know in that did not go well with the troops as far as the the troops within internal affairs, because we had people that didn't have experience, so now they were only assigned minimal cases. Right. Where those that had experience were given the rest of the cases.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Yeah, so let me expand on that. So most of the time when you get to internal affairs, it's probably a sergeant or work patrol, uh, it's probably someone that didn't really have that much investigative experience. However, I'm gonna contradict myself a little bit here because even though you worked patrol a lot, you know how to investigate. So it's not that you lacked a skill set, it's the fact that you need to continue to know how to investigate. Uh one of the best uh trainings that you can attend is things like uh SBI, science-based uh interview, interrogation techniques, huge, right? Homicide investigators are really good, you know, invest investigators, detectives that have worked some really, really high profile, lengthy, complex type of cases. Because even though Mr. Johnson walks into the front lobby and says, uh, I want to make a complaint against Juan and Marlin. Okay, what's well what happened? Well, you know, when uh they pulled me over in this traffic stop, and the way Juan just took off his sunglasses uh really bothered me. And I was so offended by his behavior, the way he came at me. So I felt that he was rude and disrespectful, right? So even something as minor as that, which you and I can agree, it's probably not gonna be misconduct, right? Right. We have to investigate that fully. And what I mean by that, if you don't have the experience to do so, well, that's where you start asking questions to your bosses, right? Right. Okay, how do you want me to go about this? Uh, don't just take a statement, you know, film it, right? Lock them in on the statement, which is the intake, right? Uh, body warm video you're watching all that, and then you write it all up, and then you get a little lazy or you just don't think about, okay, he's making, you know, these are accusations that could be a legit misconduct or not. However, it's your job as a sergeant to investigate this matter fully. Turn every single stone, go out to the scene where the traffic stop was at. Go ahead and canvas the area. Oh, you know what? There's a liquor store right there. That's a kind of shopping center. Go to every single shopping center, get a name, get a contact, and look for any type of surveillance uh video, right? That's evidence. Try to gather as much evidence as possible. So essentially, your job is to be the best evidence gatherer possible. So that way when you write up your investigation, you can give the adjudicator, hey man, every single stone was turned for this, right? And I think that's where we kind of miss, you know, we miss sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Well, you know what, Marlon, when I hear you say that, I think about how if we had all investigators do that, we would get to the truth. And, you know, most of the allegations brought up against cops are actually uh not true. Correct. And so if we get to the truth, then we exonerate the officer.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Correct, right. And you brought up a good point when we were doing the intro about this misrepresentation, right? And I want to also kind of fill in the gaps for you where uh the public, for the most part, has this misconception about internal affairs. Why? Because they see all these shows, they see all these movies, and they see, oh my God, that's internal affairs. They are the bad people and they're gonna go after these dirty cops, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

And then in the movie, right, the story is what? Uh, they are the villains. They're not the heroes. Correct. They're definitely the villains, right? But somehow, someway, the chief or someone in command staff, you know, they take care of you, or they'll sweep it under the rug if they like one. But if they don't like Marlin, then you know what? We're gonna go after him, you know. So it becomes a hit, a hit job. Right. It's like you're being targeted, and so that's where this mystification, right, of internal affairs comes from. And again, it's a topic that is not talked about at all. And I know uh you mentioned the podcast. One of, I want to say several reasons. It's not the main reason, but it's it's up there that to have an internal affairs podcast, a function that's very taboo. Yeah, you know, so we definitely gotta let your audience know and build a foundation that this is something that's not talked about. There is this misrepresentation, dismystification. And so what we're trying to do is demystify this function, considering you and I have board work internal affairs. Right. And so we know that, yeah, a lot of times there's misunderstandings as to what happened in that traffic stop. Uh I can tell you when I was in internal affairs from 2011 to 2015, you're talking north of three, I want to say close to 4,000 public complaints. Hmm. 4,000 public complaints. And I want to say close to 97% of those complaints came back unfounded. Unfounded. Not sustained, meaning that it didn't happen. Right. So what does that tell you? What that tells you is uh the violator, the traffic violator, right, the driver, right, that turns out to be the complainant, you know, has a certain story, right? And that story means a lot to that person emotionally, right? They're attached to this the way that cop came at them. Right. Well, if the cop is real, real nice, then maybe his behavior wasn't inappropriate. But if he's too stern and too firm, then then maybe it was a little disrespectful. So it's kind of like you don't really win at a traffic stop. And I'm using a traffic stop because that's the most common complaint that you get. Oh my God, I can't believe you pulled me over, right? But what we don't talk about, and what they don't see in body worm video, and this is where I hold the public accountable, the civilians accountable, I should say the citizens accountable, is we don't talk about how you behave in that traffic stop. Right. One of the reasons why it's 97% is because you then take an accountability for not giving your driver's license or for you arguing with the cop. Look, if a police officer is telling you're going 80 or a 65 or I don't know, 50 over a 35 mile per hour zone limit. Right. Okay, you don't believe him, then go to court. Like go tell the judge and say, this cop got it wrong. Okay, well, let's argue about it. There's a time and a place. Right, let's debate about it. But we don't like getting pulled over. Certainly I don't like getting pulled over. I don't want to be pulled over. No one wants to be pulled over, right? And I and I bring that up to say that the person who's making this complaint also has to take some responsibility and some accountability to ensure that we are doing a good job, right? Right. I mean, may maybe when you make that complaint and I come and do the intake and start getting all the information, maybe you might change your mind. Maybe, you know what, I probably got it wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have told the cops and I'm not gonna give him my driver's license 10 times. Like he asked me. Right. So the the that's the challenge and the um the uh propaganda, if you will, that we don't talk about, you know. But you know, lucky me that I got this podcast and uh we talk about all these internal affairs matters. I bring in guests that have gotten IAs, that have adjudicated IAs, and that have investigated IAs. And uh, you know, God bless, uh this last December we celebrated two years at 1.5 million views. And here we are at 1.7, getting reached to 1.8. So uh, you know, it's working. It's working. It's uh it it's it's making the public know that hey, we're human. And right let me tell you when the department went after me, and guess what? They got it wrong. After two years, they got it wrong. And now I go back. After two years. After two years, yes, the department got it wrong. I'm fully exonerated, right? I didn't do anything. Correct. And then I go back to work and they say, you know, one, my bad. Sorry about that. Go ahead and log on, and uh, you're gonna work this area tonight, so be safe out there.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

But now people Have created all kinds of rumors in those two years.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Correct. And so, very, very good point. Where do you go and get some validity? Where do you go and get some clearance? Right. Or maybe even some closure. Closure. Yes. You're unfortunately you're not going to get that with your superiors, right? With the levels with you. Maybe you will. And I don't want to speak blanket. I don't. Correct. There is a lot of good leaders out there. And I want to make sure that, you know, we're going on the record to say that there's a lot of good leaders that after two years will probably look at you in the eye, sit you down, and say, you know what? I am so sorry for what you went through. We left you and that island all by yourself in your darkest moments where you were facing all these serious allegations. Hell, you know what? We accused you of lying. Right. You know, and we got it wrong. And I apologize for that. And guess what? I know we told you that we ordered you that you cannot talk to anyone about this, not even your wife, not even your family. And you know what? I apologize for that. Some do, and maybe some don't. I'm only the battery, there's a lot that don't.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

You know, you bring up a great point because you know, with all that stress, there's a lot of cops that suffer during those two years. And um there have been instances where officers actually hurt themselves. Yes. Yeah, and that's a problem.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

100%. I think that in 2026, as it relates to law enforcement with mental wellness, yes, uh, now discipline is at the shelf, right? So when you think about mental wellness, you think about a cop's um experience suicide, right? Uh I lost a partner that got killed in the line of duty. Uh, let's see, uh an officer that uh is going through a divorce, and next thing you know, they become an alcoholic. Right. Uh maybe they get a major injury, you know, back surgery and they're on they're on pills, popping coating and all this other stuff. So when you think about this and trauma, right? Trauma. I mean, we experience trauma. We are going to crisis every single day. That's the job. That is the job. In 12 hours, you're probably responding to, I don't know, close to maybe what, 10, maybe 12 different crisis situations, which by the way, I don't even know who you are, and I'm here to help you. Right. Right. Right. And so that PTSD, all that is very, very at the shelf, at the forefront of law enforcement. But you know what wasn't at all was discipline. When the department got it wrong after two years of accusing me of lying, of accusing me of violating all these policies, accusing me of neglecting all my duties, when in fact, after two years, it was adjudicated as exoneration. I I was within my rights. One, two, what you actually taught me, department, you know, and uh, you know, you guys got it wrong and I got it right, you know. And so that today, to your point, is at that shelf with along with all the other male mental wellness categories, if you will. I guess that's the best way to label it.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Well, you know, it seems to me as if we can expedite some of these investigations, because if we can put together a felony package for the DA, the district attorney, um, within 48 hours as an investigator. I think that if we as skilled IA investigators, we should kind of be able to do the same.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Yes. What do you think about that? Uh I think it's great. As a matter of fact, my beloved LAPD, shout out to uh all my partners and my colleagues out there, we have this adjudication from the get-go called Demonstrably False. Okay. What Demonstrably False means is that when you decide to come in to the lobby to make a complaint against Juan and against Marlin as an example, uh, and say, you know what, I got pulled over. They were rude, disrespectful. They got me out of my car and they threw me up against the wall. Okay, got that, Mr. Johnson. Let me go and review body warn video. Well, what I would tell Mr. Johnson is, you know what, give me about 24, 48 hours to look into this matter, and you know what, I'll get back to you and we'll get more information, right? Right. And so here I am. I go download the body warm video, I watch it, and guess what? It did everything that he actually said, factual, to his lens, right? To his belief, Mr. Johnson's belief, didn't happen. That is demonstrably false. And so I would call back Mr. Johnson and say, Hey, Mr. Johnson, you know what? I just got done reviewing body worn video. You know what? The version of the story that you told me didn't quite happen that way. You're more than welcome to come with me into the room. I have the body worn video set up for you so you can watch and uh and let me know what is it that you saw that I'm not seeing, right? Right. So what ends up happening is Mr. Johnson just moonwalks and takes off. And so that DF, that demonstrably false from the get-go, you can expedite that. And there's a lot of agencies, by the way, up and down the state of California, where they don't have to adjudicate it as a demonstrably false. There's a lot of agencies that'll just do like a pre-inquiry. Okay. So it doesn't necessarily have to be like a full-blown internal affairs investigation, and they'll display it within 24 or 48 hours. My thinking is if you're an investigator, right, that sergeant is doing the intake, right there and then, in my practice, the way I have been taught, and my belief is it is only at that time, as an investigating sergeant or detective, whoever, that you can adjudicate a complaint right there off the get-go, saying, you know what? Hey, boss, I kind of did you a favor because this is all false. Right? Where in reality, when you are investigating a full-blown internal affairs investigation, your job is just to investigate. Again, be the best evidence gatherer that you that you can be, and then turn it in for the next level review because they adjudicate the complaints, not you.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Great points. Great points. Now, let me ask you something. In LA, do they have something uh that is termed an internal investigation versus an external investigation? Yeah, yes. Um, in how do how does LA P D kind of classify these two different types of investigations?

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Oh man, well, I mean, it's I I what I can tell you is that it's way easier. I should say easier, right? It's way, yeah, I guess that's the best way to describe it. It's easier to investigate Mr. Johnson walking into the front lobby making a citizen complaint.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

But when you have a colleague or a co-employee saying internal, yeah, internal, those are very complex. Um, yeah, absolutely. I think we can do a better job. Uh, and this is where I kind of where the uh fork meets the road. Yes, so to speak, where should we be handling it? I don't know. I'm starting to be I'm starting to be a believer of outsourcing that complaint to an independent third party.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

It I agree with you because in San Diego now, kind of related, we have officer-involved shootings that are being investigated by a different agency within the county. Yeah, that's good. And I think we should start thinking about that with IAs.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

100%. Look, if you're telling me that you sexually harass me or this is a hostile working environment and you discriminated me, hey, you uh uh I'll give you an example. Uh I'm a female uh police officer and I want to work that that swing shift. Right. And the swing shift is what, 4 p.m. to 2 in the morning? It's when it's when it all goes down, man. Friday nights, Saturday nights, and you, you know, you signed up to go catch bad guys. Right. And your bosses are telling you, yeah, you know what? Well, uh get with me next month. And a month goes by, two months go by, three months go by, and you know that that entire watch is all male officers, you might have a problem, you know. Uh and again, uh sexual harassment is super fragile. Yeah, it's very delicate, it's uh very intimate. There's a lot of emotions. And if you work in a unit of five, we shouldn't be well. It's a lot of people. Uh, I think at one point internal affairs was over north of 400 sergeants investigating. So when you get that case, that internal case, there's a strong possibility that you might not know who the accused is and the witnesses, right? And the victim in in this particular scenario. But I'm starting to be a big believer that you know what, even though you might not know them, just outsource it. Like give it to somebody else, another entity, another firm or another department.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Correct. You know, because even if you don't know the players, you may know some of the supervisors that you were friends with, and now they can influence your opinion if you have a conversation with them. 100%, or just from the get-go.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Yes. The minute I see the face sheet of the internal affairs complaint and it says Marlon Maracci, I'm like, Oh, that guy. Yeah, it's that guy. That guy's a player. Hell yeah, he did this. You have this preconceived notion. Right. And you haven't even started your investigation, right? Yeah, it's not fair. Exactly. So I think if you give it to a set of fresh eyes, you're better off being very neutral, being bear, being very fair, and of course being very uh impartial.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

So now imagine the smaller departments under 50, under 100.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Yes. Yeah, you have to outsource no matter what. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

You gotta have built get an MOU with another agency or somebody within your county.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Yeah, have the chief of police call your neighboring agency, say, you know what, you need to do me a solid uh and uh have them investigate something inside. You know, but by the way, you gotta take uh Marlon Morachi's internal affairs course uh because if you want to get it right, no stone goes unturned, then uh then we're good to go. So post-certified. It was, yes. I would I worked for Savage Training Group for three years. I was teaching a California post-certified course. However, I'm on my own now, and uh, we're doing a couple of privates, uh, you know, and other type of uh workshops as it relates to how to investigate IAs. Uh and my bread and butter lately has been uh false statements. False statements, misleading statements. That's a whole different conversation because there is uh definitions, there's a major analysis that you have to do. And again, you got to take this job very serious because we are accusing you of lying. Uh, no cop likes to be accused of being a liar. Well, no spouse, right? No best friend, no boss likes to be accused of being a liar. So we got to get that right. And with that being said, we pull back the curtains and we do a full major biopsy as to how the investigator went about getting that lie. Because I'm here to tell you through my experience, and I've been doing this already for what, a couple of years. I got hired as an expert wit for a couple of cases that involved the dishonesty allegation. They call it dishonesty, untruthfulness, false statements, misleading statements. And what I've realized and learned is there's not many agencies out there that have a true definition of what a false statement is. Uh California Post, uh Senate Bill 2 does have a dishonesty, which is one of the nine deadliest sins. However, I think it just talks about the woeful intent. Uh, it's like maybe three buzzwords. I think it's one sentence. Uh everybody has lexapol. If you're I take it the majority of your audience is is cops. Correct. Okay, so if you have lexapol, I'm telling you right now, you don't have it. I used to work at Cal State. I read Lexapole from the beginning. I went to the actually to the internal affairs section. There is none. Uh HR, right? Um manuals, yes, or you know, handbooks, nobody has it. Does your agency have one? I'm here to tell you they don't. But you know who has one is LAPD. My beloved LAPD has had one since 1999. And so for that, uh, yes, I'm very proud of, you know, and for that, it has afforded me so much success that I can actually get hired and just do this full biopsy on this completed IA and say, yeah, they got it wrong. And it's very unfortunate for me to say this, but to your point, we were just talking about that is that there's just a lot of investigators that are not very good at investigating. True.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Now, you know, you since you brought up uh untruthfulness, yes, um what do you think about this? Uh post mandates for use of force does not mandate writing a report on use of force. Correct. And now if you're not taught how to write a use of force report and you go in the field and you write a use of force report, could you be could you fall under the umbrella of maybe untruthfulness?

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Yes, I would hope. Well, the short answer is yes. Correct. The long answer is and we're just talking about a regular use of force.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Let's just say a regular use of force, and you know, somebody reads it and it doesn't look good because you don't know how to write one. Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

So what I would suggest is if you have body worn video, you better watch a body warm video.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

It's your best friend. It's your best friend. It is exactly it is.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

You'd be surprised. There's agencies out there where they don't want it. Well, not only that, I mean, well, yeah. If you have it, get rid of it. Right. And if you don't have it, get one. It's one partner. Shout out to James Takey, that's my boy. He used to always say that. Um with body warm video. But my thinking is that there's probably a lot of agencies that don't actually watch body warm video before they actually do the report. The report. So that's when you need a good sergeant to say, hey, look, go watch all your body worn video before you even write one sentence. I'm telling you, go watch it on your phone or go download, you know, wherever we have it. Wherever we have it. Wherever you had, just get it done, right? It avoids discrepancies. It avoids inaccuracies, right? And so that's step number one. But yeah, I don't think um my thinking is if there is inaccuracies in your report, you know what? You gotta go back and I I guess the first question would be did you watch a body warm video? So that's probably the the biggest key right there. Make sure that you watch all your body warm video, right? Now the challenge is this, and a lot of agencies don't have a protocol, which I have learned by teaching up and down the state of California, is that when you have a use of force where the suspect is at the hospital. Okay. Okay, so let's just say um, for the lack of better words, the suspect got tuned up.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Right? And he's got staples in his head.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

Okay. Uh that's a little too graphic. Let's just go with they, you know, a lot of bruising. It's bad. All uses of forces are bad. They don't look textbook at all. They don't look good. They're not gonna look good whatsoever. Right. And so the suspects at the hospital, and let's just say five, six hours go by, and you're waiting around to see if they're going to be admitted into the hospital, right? Right. Because of the injuries. Well, the minute they are admitted, and here we are ten hours later, right? Right, that sergeant needs to ring the bell and make other notifications because now you gotta handle it as a critical incident.

unknown 38:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Does that make sense? It makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

I and it it has been brought to my attention just by teaching up and down the state of California with a lot of agencies, small to medium-sized agencies, they don't really have somewhat of a protocol like, well, what do we do when that happens? Because 10 hours have gone by. Now, in that 10-hour window, what's happened? Well, uh the officers involved in that uh use of force have already watched Body Warm video, they've already written their statements, sergeants already reviewed it, right? Right. And then all of a sudden, they're admitted. You might be looking at criminal filings. You might be looking at what? Aggravated assault, you might be looking at battery, felony battery, who knows, depending on the circumstances, right? Correct. Now, as an IA investigator, you got to go present that to the DA's office. And depending on what county you're in, right? I'll be nice. Right. It just depends. There's a lot of counties up here in the state of California. They are. You might get filed on. You might not. And if they decide to file on you, you've just got done violating your peace officer's bill of rights because you have given statements without any representation whatsoever. So that's where we teach a lot of these agencies how to go about uh we used to call it a law enforcement-related injury, Leary. You know, cops love acronyms. Right. Um and again, my beloved, my beloved LAPD, you know, taught me well. And there's a lot of things that we do good, and there's a lot of things that we don't do good at all. But this is one of those protocols that's necessary and that's important. And it it seems to me, since I've been retired and teaching up and down the city of California, uh, we're missing the gap as to how to handle these particular types of incidents.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

So you keep mentioning LAPD, and I always thought, how rough would it be working IA in LAPD? And I say that not just because of the size of the city, the size of the department, but because you we have Hollywood. Yeah. And we have a lot of big personalities in town. And so, you know, I mean, like we just had this case that's been highlighted on uh it was highlighted on in the news this morning uh with that rapper David and the uh 14-year-old that was uh found in it dead in his car uh in September. Um nonetheless, okay. This is in LA County, right? This is in LA County. So there's a lot of celebrities. That's why I'm bringing that up. Yeah, no, no. There's a lot of celebrities, and um it's gotta be like a lot of pressure to perform well if we have, you know, Tiger Woods or you know, uh, you know, rappers, we have directors, we have people that you have money. You have Hollywood, yes. Yeah, a lot of influence. Lots of influence. And they probably know the chief. Yeah, yeah. Make a phone call and say, hey, make this go away. They probably have had those conversations.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah, oh no, absolutely. Uh what I would say is, and again, this is all internal. So, you know, look, if someone wants to make a complaint against an officer, unfortunately, and this is where I'm a little critical of my beloved LAPD, is we have to take that complaint. You know, I think I mentioned earlier that not everything has to be an IA. Right. Well, unfortunately, with LAPD, everything is an IA. You can walk into the lobby today, right now, and say Juan and Marlon were rude to me. Um, I was uh having uh lunch at the food court, and they came by and they were giggling and laughing and talking about something, and I I felt offended by the things that they said. What cut a face you eat and we'll do it. And me personally, I I don't think that's right. I don't think we should be spending times and resources to investigate something so minor. You know, but we do. I mean, that the front desk officer has to call the sergeant, and the sergeant, the minute they hear the word complaint, that C word, they they'll take it, right? And a lot of that has to do with what happened back when Chief Parks became the chief of police in 1997, his first general you guys call them general orders, we we call it special order, was zero tolerance on alleged misconduct, meaning that anyone who walks in to a front lobby, uh supervise a request at a traffic stop or at a service call, and they want to make a complaint, regardless of what they believe a complaint is, regardless of their emo sometimes it's just emotional. Sure. Right? Yeah. Well, he was rude. Okay, can you explain how was he rude? You know, well, he made an improper. He was very discouraged, he was very Discourteous. Okay. Can you walk me to can you just let me know or explain to me how is it that he made you feel discourteous? You know, all these little minor stuff, we gotta take it. And I'm here to tell you, it's been it's that's 29 years ago, right? Okay, let's change and not make everything an IA.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

So but you know, I mean, when you talk to me, I I'm all in. Yes, I agree with you 100%. Yeah, let's but we got here for a reason. Yes. And I mean, right or wrong, I there was once upon a time there were cops that were not doing the right thing. Yes. And even today there's somebody out there, a cop, that is not doing the right thing. Oh, 100%. And we got to make sure that we hold those accountable. Or get rid of them. Accountable. That's right. Like, yes. That includes get out.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Get these bad actors and these bad apples out of our profession, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

I think uh we don't have enough of that.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

No, which is another reason why I started the YouTube channel. I'm very fair across the board. I'd love to scrub YouTube and find resignations in lieu of or they terminated.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Let's let okay, let's let me do a quick breakdown. Well, and that's why I kind of I support SB2. Yes. Because now, you know, as you know, there are cops that could uh be fired in one state and they can go and get hired in a different state. Correct. But with SB2, that's not supposed to happen.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

Yeah, SB2 was designed and its purpose is to uh look into decertification or revocation, I should say, revocation or suspension of your certificate. In other words, we're kind of gonna go ahead and go through this process to see if we're gonna continue to let you be a police officer in the state of California. I'm all for that too. Uh the nine deadly sins. We talked about one dishonesty, you have acts of violation of the law, uh EEO, uh abuse of power, E.O. Uh gang associate. I don't know where that came from. Uh besides the fact that, you know, they said, oh my God, the LASD went through this huge, you know, motorcycle gangs or gangs, you know, association by gangs. There is out of the nine deadly sins, I'm gonna say about, I don't know, maybe five or six, I'm all in. The other ones I'm just kind of like Where do they come from? And my only criticism I have about SB2 is you have to make the notification within 10 days when you do the IA. We call them cutting a face sheet, right? When you do the intake, when you do the initial IA, you have to let them know. You go through Mark 43 and this software and voila, they know. My thinking is, you know what? If we're gonna be looking into and scrutinizing and passing judgment on, you know, your ability to be a cop, right? And we're gonna kind of suspend or revoke your license. Uh, maybe we should wait until it gets adjudicated. Right. So, in other words, let's investigate it fully, let's get it adjudicated, let's get it served, and say, yes, uh, you are found guilty for lying. Yes, you are found guilty for excessive force. I'm all in. That sounds like a fair process. Yeah, and you know what? And that's one of the things that uh, you know, shout out to uh Chad Bianco, you know, which I I hope uh that you know he makes it to the top. As a governor, as you know, I would love to have a seat on the table to renovate or revamp and have that conversation about Senate Bill 2 where we can do things different. I mean, look, you go to the website right now, I th I want to say, I want to say their closure rate's like 85%. I mean, it's okay way up there. Meaning they're just getting over overwhelmed, overwhelmed, completely flooded with all kinds of IA complaints. And they're like, you know what, and and and guess what? They don't have the personnel to they don't at all. They don't at all. And so why don't we find a better way? There's a better practice, you know. We can correct that's that's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Uh I agree with you because then the cases that need to be looked at, yeah, they might be lost in the uh paperwork. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

Look, man, uh uh you you can uh agree to uh when I say this, uh we can both you know have that lens where in our experience, if you're a cop and you start acting and behaving in such a manner that is so negative and detrimental to not only your partners, the department, right? Your colleagues, right, but to the public, then yeah, I think we kind of start needing, we start looking into, or we should kind of you know pass some judgment as to hey, do we want to continue have you be a police officer? However, that is more off-duty than it is on duty. That's that that's what I've gotten out of my experience. Things that happen off duty, I mean, man, that scope is super narrow. Sure. To scrutinize you and pass judgment. 100%. We should. We should. We can't be having cops going to bars, you know, shooting their guns off after they leave the bar, you know, get drunk and during their skibbies with the badge, and they're up on the counter of the bar, you know, laughing and hollering, and and then what happens? Everybody's like, eh, yeah, doing all this. You drop your gun, and then you drop your gun, or you know, or you know, F this and that. I mean, they're just you know I mean you out of control. Out of control, what's that fancy buzzword belligerent? Belligerent acting very belligerent, uh, which to this very day I'm still trying to figure out what that word means. Someone just brought it up not too long ago about being belligerent. But okay, we need to kind of like time out. We need to look into like, should you be a cop from this point forward? Sure. I get that part, right? But when we start talking about on-duty essential job functions of a police officer, we should have more flexibility. We already agree that every use of force doesn't look good. Right. It's not, it's not textbook, okay? I mean, if if I walk up to you in a traffic stop and I ask for your driver's license 10 times and you're just dropping F-bombs and being completely rude, what do you expect me to do? Right. What's next? Exactly. What's next? And so I think that's where we need to be a little bit more understanding and have more flexibility.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

I I agree with you 100%. I also would add that we need to be able to ensure that we police each other in the field. So, like you and I are working and I'm having a bad day, and yeah, the contact goes sideways, after the contact's over, or even during, you might want to be like, hey Juan, come here, bro. Yeah. Chill.

SPEAKER_03 51:07

100%.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

We need that. We need more of that.

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Uh I think we've gone to extremes where you know, with these um failure to intervene policies, some people are now turning people in for everything. Yeah. He said the F-word.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh it's it's that saying we are worse enemies. We can be. Well, for the most part, I I think we do. I mean, uh as much as you know, we're having fun and having some humor behind us, but yeah, there's probably I would hate to say this or look into this, but I I would hate to see an agency have more internal complaints than external complaints. Correct. That that to your point, that goes to leadership, that goes to being, you know, managing your you know, your uh rank and file, your your your officers as a sergeant. That's your job, correct. Right? And so, you know, it maybe it does happen, maybe it doesn't, but uh, yeah, you bring a good point. I think we do it to ourselves. We are worst enemies. Uh, what's that saying? We eat our own. We do eat our own. Yeah. Not all the time, but we do. It does happen.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Yes. It does happen, uh, unfortunately. Yes. And you know, I sometimes see it in the academy. Yes. So if we're eating our own in the academy, imagine what's gonna happen. Yeah, what's gonna happen on graduation day. Yes. Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

Um you if I may interject now that you're brought to the academy, and I noticed you were an instructor. Uh I'm still there. You're still there. I'm still there, I'm still teaching. You're still there. Okay, good. Because this is gonna really uh uh hopefully it'll sink in you when I say this that in the podcast there has been over 250 guests in two years, right? And one of the questions that I ask in the podcast is when you were in the academy, did anyone from internal affairs come in and to explain to you what the process is? One, two, or I ask, can you tell me when was your first impression of internal affairs? Did that happen in the academy? It probably happened when you were on probation. Maybe your FTOs told you something about internal affairs, which I'm assuming, right? I don't like to speculate or assume a lot, but I'm I'm gonna take a shot at this. I'm assuming that your field training officers, right? Your F your FTOs are telling you what? Don't talk to those guys. They are the rat squad, they're evil, they're blue falcons. Just, you know what? F those guys. Right. Right. Or your first impression is gonna be what? When you actually get an IA. So three, four years have gone by. Yes. And next you know, you get an email saying you're being investigated uh because you did a traffic stop on such and such date, uh, the allegations are neglect of duty, violation of policy, and you're like, oh shit. And so I have taken it on my own to realize and do the research. It's not me. So I'm just a host. Right. I asked the questions, the research, right? The data, right? This is empirical. These are people who are actually, you know, um giving their testimony, if you will, in our conversations. No, no one has come into the academy to take the time to say, hey, check this out. Let me tell you what happens with internal. Who has here heard of internal affairs? People are gonna, you know, these recruits, uh I take it you watched a show, you saw a movie or something like that, or maybe someone told you something really bad about dysfunction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let me explain to you what that is. You guys know what uh peace house and villain rights are? Uh yeah, kinda, you know, or let's use that scare tactic uh sort of approach where you have someone that got fired. Right. Come into your academy, sit right in front of all the recruits, all your cadets, and say, you know what? Where you were sitting, I was there two years ago, and I got fired. And let me tell you why that's gonna have an impact on you. Absolutely. But you know, Juan, we don't do it, we don't do it, and it's such a disservice, and I'm not gonna hold leadership accountable for that, I'm gonna hold all of us accountable for not doing that. So it's important, it's important. You know, I'll get off my soapbox with that one now.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

Um, Marlene, let me ask you this. Yeah. Um, you're working in LAPD, and um, you know, you I think every law enforcement officer deputy in uh the US has heard of Rampart. Yes. Um, but you being right there, right? Right coming in right in the as Rampart's going on. I mean, like it's fit, you know, there are people are being identified and Rafael Perez is dropping names. How does how does that uh Raphael uh Perez uh affect the LAPD?

SPEAKER_03 56:31

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Because it wasn't just LAPD, it affected everybody across the nation. Well, you well, us for sure.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

Yes, obviously. I mean for obvious reasons. Uh what I will say is two things that I'll say. Number one, definitely go watch uh the episode with uh Benthotobar, because he was one of the survivors of this so-called scandal. I always label it, I always label this as a so-called scandal because if there's one thing I learned in law school is words have meanings. They do. You can't just be saying stuff without you like, okay, that's you know, that's pretty harsh. Sure. Right? Or I can't believe you said that. And so scandalous behavior to me means like there's like a whole bunch of cops that are acting scandalous. Right. Um, I think I was talking to, I forgot, I was I was a guest on a um with uh on another podcast, and he uh the host said that he he was a journalist. Okay, and basically he wrote the whole story, and he was the inside journalist investigator for a scandal that happened in Baltimore. Oh Baltimore. Yeah, the 16 officers that worked the uh firearms tracking unit, something along the lines where it was 16 of them that were cutting corners. I mean, uh they were taking money, you know. It was it was scandalous. Scandalous what they were doing. 16 of them. And and they got convicted. I think out of the 16, like 10, the other six, the uh, you know, the other ones took off. This I don't want nothing to do with this, I'm just gonna go ahead and retire. Okay, that is scan sixteen officers in a specialized unit. I get that. Okay. Sure. So let me start off there.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

When Officer Perez in August of 1998 went to go steal cocaine out of the LAPD's property division.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Okay, that is bro, that's it doesn't get any worse than being a criminal in uniform.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

The guy, the guy's, the guy's a thug, you know, he's a gangster in uniform, right? And I know all the research in the study tells you that, you know, maybe he was a blood, he worked for Suge Knight. And yeah, there was a case with Nino Durden uh and his buddy David Mack. And it, you know, it goes on. Kevin Gaines. Kevin Gaines. You know what happened with Frank. Look, movies haven't made about that. Uh it's been sensationalized, it's historical, right? Right. In law enforcement. But I took a whole different approach and a whole different angle of this so-called scandal. Because when the party got started in August of 90, 1998, he basically implicated 70, 70 officers. 70. Okay. And this is all from an administrative lens.

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

Only. So forget the Krim. I think the Krim, I think they ended up with like 56 cases where they had to, the DA's office had to say, we we we need to get rid of these cases. They dropped charges. Yeah, we have to drop charges. It was a mess. Okay. We created a I mean a perfect storm. Okay, and I'll get to that later what I mean by that. But let's just talk about those 70. Okay. Out of the 70 officers that were implicated from an administrative lens, in other words, we're alleging that you cut corners, administrative leave, policy violations, neglect of duty, uh, unbecoming conduct, all that stuff. Okay, got it. The research says it's 54 or 56. So let's just even go with 56. So 56 out of the 70, uh, the chief command staff said, you know what? You're gonna go through this whole disciplinary machine. You know, your fate lies on this hearing, this border rights hearing. You might end up at a at a hearing, it's kind of like your arbitration, civil service commission, same thing. We call it border rights hearing. Hey, you're gonna end up there, and I'm recommending for you to get fired, right? Okay, let's get rid of all these bad apples. Well, come to find out out of the 56, the research and the newspaper will tell you that it was five. Five. Out of the batch of 56 that got terminated. Well, guess what? They got it wrong. It was only four.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

Okay. But here's what the newspaper journalists and what the media and what the department won't tell you. Out of the four, three got reinstated.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

Reinstated.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

Yes. As a matter of fact, out of the three reinstatements, only two went through the whole appeal process. In other words, they went to a hearing, right? They got fired. Right. Right. And then they had an appeal to get your jaws back. Okay. So it was only three, I'm sorry, two out of the four that did that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

Okay. The other one never went through that whole process. He was just relieved from duty for over 10 years, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. So one of the common things on my show, and I don't want to digress too much, is uh, hey Marlon, you know what? The punishment's not the penalty, the punishment is the process. That is so, so spot on, is what I've learned. And so essentially, what you're really talking about is one accused colleague of Perez that got fired. And guess what? He didn't get fired for stealing cocaine of LAPD's property division. He got fired over some minor of an incident that has nothing to do with what Officer Perez was doing for quite some time. Okay? Correct. So we got to go on the record. And again, if we keep preaching this buzzword transparency, you know what? Come on the show and let's talk about this. And I've been fortunate for at least one. So one of the three came in and told this story. This is the only reason why I know is because he experienced it. He went through it. He was one of the service. Yes, and he got his job back. What people don't know, probably even my colleagues in LEPD don't know, that he was a 31-year veteran, great worker, dedicated. Uh ended up making detective supervisor and did 31 years. And when he came back to work after being gone for three years, almost three years, two and a half, two, two and a half, close to three years. Um Beto, don't quote me on that. I think it's close to three. But and when he came back to work, no one apologized.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

No one could ever said, you know what, I am so sorry for what we put you through. And he went on to do another extra 28 years. Okay. And so when we talk about this rampart scandal, I'm gonna call bullshit. It's not, it's not, at least the way I see it. Until someone proves me wrong, uh, hasn't happened yet, uh, then you know what? Come through and let me know. Now, was there um police policies and functions as a result of what happened with uh Officer Perez spilling the beans? Absolutely. And that's when we got into the consent degree in 2001. So after 1998, okay, we're doing police work completely, completely different. And guess what? We have to start changing protocols, we have to start changing practices, we have to start changing the culture. You know, we have to really, really dig and start doing things. And some were needed.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Some were needed. Oh no, but of course it went to an extreme.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:25

Yeah, but you know what, let's not single out LAPD. I mean, we can talk about you know, the uh from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. I would tend to think that every metropolitan city department probably the police were completely different than same policies. Yeah, well, well same culture. Same culture, same culture. I would say same culture, you know, the Dallas's, the Houstons, uh, you know, uh San Francisco, and New York, Boston, huge metropolitan Miami, uh Miami in the 80s, Phoenix. Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine the way you did police work back then, you know, it's different. I mean, man, I was talking to my partner the other day. Hey, when I was on probation in 1999, if we late at night, if it's one o'clock, two in the morning, we see a Toyota Camry, it's on. If we see a Honda Accord, it is on and popping. We're going, we're hunting. Right? We used to call it obs work, observation work. Observation work. Yeah, they call it something different now, you know, pro enforcement or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:25

But my point Softer, softer. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:28

My point is that we knew that the most stolen vehicle in the city of Los Angeles is a Honda Corridor Tanto Camry, right? You know, of course, um, you know, I'm taking you back, what, you know, 26, 27 years ago. Yeah. Okay, I get it. There's probably no 1985 or to the 1992 at a Camry.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Well, there's still there there probably still is on the road, but they're not being stolen.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:54

Right. And then we got to also take in consideration what the crack cocaine era. Oh. We also got to take in consideration. Consideration that a lot of people don't know this is that I want to say 1994, 1995, and uh my colleagues are gonna correct me is that rampart area, which is six and a half square mile, 168 homicides in one year alone. Ellie, the city Los Angeles in 1990, 1991, and 1992, you can do the research, uh, call my bullshit, over a thousand homicides per year. Per year. There is a sergeant of mine that I used to work for uh when I was a young cop who told me that when he showed up to work as a watch commander, within the first four hours he had three homicides. And this is a rampart. And guess what? There was a gang on wars and a war on gangs and a war on drugs. It was declared, like it was no. So it's a bad recipe. So essentially, what I'm saying is this perfect storm, yeah. We got a lot of good out of it because now we're different, we do things different. Sure, we do things better. I shouldn't say different. Police work will always be police work, you know. The fundamentals, traffic stop is a traffic stop, right? We're gonna approach it no any different 28 years ago than we are doing it today, right? I get that part, but yeah, we can be better and we have gotten better. And you know what? It's almost uh, and I haven't really thought of this until we're having this conversation. You know, it's almost as if, you know, like like anything else about conflict. Uh, anytime that you try to resolve conflict, it's healthy. There's just good. There's good that can come out of it, you know. Thank Officer Press, you know, for creating this. I mean, it from an emotional uh perspective, it it really ruined a lot of his colleagues. One in particular killed himself. Wow, you know, and so I have a passion for that. Uh for getting it right, for being again, transparency, accountability. We throw these buzzwords all the time. We're transparent with the public, we're pretty good at accountability, but we're not within ourselves. We we're not. I mean on the scale to one to ten, ten being the highest, we're probably maybe a three or a four. What I'm trying to do is I'd say three. Yeah, it's a three. What we're trying to accomplish in the podcast, and again, the podcast is not, has nothing to do with Marlon Maracci. The only reason why I rebranded is because I want to do other projects. Sure. You know, uh I was the IA guy for it, I will always be the IA guy, you know, and the podcast's purpose is to bring transparency and accountability within ourselves. You know what? I got it wrong. If I can have an adjudicator, captain, commander, deputy chief, someone come in and say, you know what? Yeah, we screwed up. We ruined that officer's job.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:57

Let's talk about it because we can learn something from that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

How do we move forward?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:01

How do we move forward? How do we get better? Better, yes. And and and ensure that we don't do this again. Right. You know, but here we are, you know, 2026, man. And I pull the LA Times sometimes, and I still talk to my colleagues, and guess what? Nothing's really well, some things haven't changed, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:16

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:20

Damn, you know, I'm gonna have to steal that from you. And with uh Rafael things change, the more things still stay the same. Correct. You know, can can you write that for me? Thank you, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

With with Rafael Perez, the thing is is that you know, he ended up getting a sweeter deal, right? With the sweetheart deal.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:39

That's correct. Uh he only did getting I I think it was looking anywhere between um, I think it was eight to fifteen, maybe fifteen years. Okay. Hey man, what's that other saying? Uh you you do the crime, you pay the you pay the time. Yeah. You do the crime.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:55

Yeah. Yeah. You do the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

But no, he got a sweet deal.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Well, I I hey, I don't know the guy at all. And maybe me, I don't want to go to hardcore uh state penitentiary, dude. As a cop. I might get killed. I'm gonna end up probably getting killed.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:13

Something's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

Something's gonna go down.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:16

Something's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:16

So I get that part.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

Yes. But but don't yeah, man. Well, especially, I mean, and you know, just from things that I've read or what have you, uh, the Rampart report. Um, he was he shot someone. Yes. Uh Osvaldo.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:34

Yeah, the Osvaldo case with him and Eno Durden uh was a full conviction. Yeah. And and again, when we start talking about that isn't that's that's an incident, that's an arrest. That is something that him and Eno Durden, you know, were held accountable for. Right. You know, what I'm talking about is a whole different side of the disciplinary process. The the ones that suffer the most.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:02

A lot of lives were ruined. Right. So families, families, families, everything. You can name it, man. I mean, uh I I've only had two guests thus far. Uh so essentially I have about 56 stories and probably even more, you know? Yeah. About, hey man, let me tell you what happened, you know, back then. Look at the way I was treated. And and that's that is the other main purpose of the podcast, which is why I launched it, is because we want to be able to somehow, some way make this process better, right? Just because I'm told that I'm not allowed to talk to anyone, right? I'm given a gag order, right? And just because uh I'm being accused of some serious allegations of misconduct doesn't mean that I have to walk through this process all by myself.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:48

That that's all I'm saying, you know, and I'm a big critic of that. You know, I passed I don't pass judgment because I don't know these leaders, right? These chiefs or these captains. I'm not speaking uh uh blanket, I'm I'm not throwing that broad brush out there. But what I have been hearing and what I have seen since I got involved in this in 2008, right, in this internal affairs world, is we're not good at that. We just relieve you from do the leave you at home and maybe we'll check up on you or not. You know, all I'm saying is that you know what? Let's I'm gonna grab your hand and walk you through that dark alley through every single step. I'm not gonna tell you what's going on with the case, sure, but I am going to keep you informed. So I guess what I'm essentially trying to say is that we're just not good at communicating. But that's just men in general, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:43

As men, we don't but you know, this wellness piece that a lot of agencies are going to, I think it's a step in the right direction. Yes, yes, 100%. Now, you know what? Um, as we're getting closer to the end of the show, I want to ask you just some advice and or opinions on things that throw out. Okay. Conduct unbecoming.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:07

Uh in the business of things not looking good. You know what, Juan? That doesn't look good. So if it doesn't look good, then it's gonna be an IA. Unbecoming conduct and officers. Sounds so fancy, right? Right. Or uh UBC or uh conduct unbecoming an officers. It's either Cubo or UBC. Uh when you hear when I hear that, I think of just it doesn't look good. It's a negative reflect. What it what essentially what it the definition of it is something along the lines that it has to reflect negatively on the eyes of all stakeholders. You know, it's it's got to be like pretty unfavorable. You know, I would say it's got to shock the conscience. Yes. Like, oh my God, I can't believe that cop did that. You know, he's at the bar in his skibbies, you know, waving his badge around, you know, drunk as a skunk, and he, okay, that that's conduct unbecoming. That doesn't look good at all. Right. So I don't know if that guy can continue to be a cop.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

You see what I'm saying? So yeah. Fire away, man. But you know, also just to add to that, is like you could put it may not meet what you might think is conduct unbecoming, but you by putting yourself in that situation, someone that doesn't really like you, yeah, it's conduct unbecoming.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:30

Yes. Uh like my uh one of my guests who I never had a chance to work for said it best. If the matter concerns the public, then yeah, we need to like investigate. Like we need to look look into it, right? But if it's an internal matter, we need to be more flexible and more understanding. Good.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:57

Now, how about uh gang enforcement?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:01

What about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Well, I mean, I just any thoughts on uh, you know, when it comes to YA, uh, I know I have some opinions as far as uh gang enforcement. Uh we gotta be careful about not becoming the gang. You know, by any means necessary, we're going after people.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:18

Yeah, I think uh uh I I'm gonna miss the quote, but when uh off speaking of Rafael Perez, I know in his uh sentencing, you know, while you're uh chasing uh the beast, don't become the beast. Yeah, no, absolutely. You can get jaded quickly, 100%. Yeah. Don't don't cut corners. And by the way, good question because this is where I get to kind of interject. Let's just make sure that your audience understands that we're talking about a very, very, and I'm gonna say it again, very, very, very small fraction of the population. Let's not it's an interesting topic, it's a great function to like go, wow, right? We can sensationalize all this stuff that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:05

But we need to make sure that we're talking about a very small fraction of the population. I mean, at one point when I worked in internal affairs, uh, we had these hearings, we call them border rights hearings. Uh, we had a hundred in one year. Out of the a hundred, half of those, 50% of those were directed by the chief. Meaning you have an option. Like, if I gave you a 10-day suspension for some policy violations, you're like, uh, no, that's way too much. And by the way, I didn't do that. You can opt for this hearing. So it's it's your choice. However, half of those were directed by the chief saying, you know what, you lied, serious allegations of misconduct, you're going to this hearing. Your fate lies on those three board members. I'm recommending termination, but we're going to wait and see what happens at this hearing. So that's 50. So if LEPD was over 10,000 at one point, come on. We're talking about 0.000000001% of the population. Again, let me just remind people: 18,000 agencies across the United States, over 800,000 officers. I've never heard of Kenosha, I've never heard of Ferguson. Um, yeah, I'm kind of familiar with Minneapolis. Sure. I mean, of course, I know the Minnesota Vikings are, but you know, and and uh, you know, the Summer of Love happened in uh 2020 and it changed the perception of law enforcement, policies, good things. I'm all for change. I'm all that. But we got to remember that these little small pockets, yeah, we got some thugs out there in uniform, bro. I'd be the first one to tell you, you know, which is why we need IA. We need to police our own. But let's just be careful and and understand that all these sensational, you know, incidents that the media, you know, makes them out to be this, oh my God, if it happened in Minneapolis, then you know what, it's happening in Los Angeles. Everywhere. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:03

So no, and I'm glad you clarified that because, you know, even at the beginning of the show, we said, you know, that um most of us, 99.9% of us, are doing the job correctly. 100%. Yeah. Um we just and we said it during the uh podcast is that we want to make sure that we get rid of those that are not doing it correctly. Correct. Hold them accountable. You gotta go. Now, another topic. Yes. Um, law enforcement and alcohol consumption.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

Uh yeah. Well, you know what? If you allow me to come to your uh uh academy class, uh I would love to say uh what I was told when I was a young officer, stay away from the three B's. Okay. Um babes, booze, and bad debt. So if you can just tell them that, then yeah, oh no, 100%. Alcohol is it that's the killer, man. Yeah, you know, unfortunately, when you start talking about alcohol-related issues, uh there it's a deep-rooted issue. Yes, you know, and of course, you know, you're in denial. I know I shouldn't dry drunk, you know, considering today you have what? You have Lyft, you have Uber, I mean you have options. And so those are difficult to investigate. Well, I shouldn't say they're they're not difficult to investigate. A DUI is a DUI. Sure. I mean, I wouldn't I don't even know if I want to interview you, compel you, because what are you gonna tell me? Well, you know, all the evidence here shows that you you you did the SFST, you failed it, and you blew the BAC level was like 0.12. Right. W what are you gonna tell me besides? Well, can you supply? Well, that's not true. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. Well, let me push play on the hold on a second, here's body warm. You know, yeah. So it's not hard of a case to investigate, but it's very challenging to adjudicate. All right. Because God, that's so difficult. I mean, I can imagine myself as a chief, and if I had an officer who's, you know, this just drink, let's why? You know, you're going through a divorce, you have a problem with your kids, uh, you know, what trauma you're experiencing. I mean, there, you know, maybe you might want to like hold the penalty uh in advance, right? Like defer it and maybe get them some help. That's where the wellness comes in. Yeah, you know what, and interesting, you you bring that up. Uh, there was remember the case from um, I want to say it was Fresno County, the officer that was on duty that took the uh the crack from uh the arrestee, and then he went to the bathroom. Oh, yes. Yeah, and then he started, you know. I mean, that that is just devastating. And of course, in her report, he wrote that he didn't recover any crack. Uh, and then he he was OD and he was you know having seizures right there in the bathrooms, you know, in the cube cubicle where the toilet was. Um, you know, that that those are that's just devastating. I think it is you know, what do you do? Yeah, it's an IA, 100%. And that's a fireable offense, right? You're gonna get vaccinated for that. But do we just say, hey, you're being served, you're scelly, goodbye, and have a nice day? No, maybe maybe look. Uh my my thinking is we have a whole year, right? The statue limitations 3304 is one year limitation. So you know what? Before we fire them, let let's let's get you some help. Let's get him some help, you know, on the department's dime. True, you know, I agree with that. Uh that would be nice. But do we do that? I don't know. I don't think so. That's what I was thinking, you know. So, yeah, alcohol is uh very sensitive and uh it can be very challenging to adjudicate.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:50

You brought it up, and this is my last one. Yes, you said babes, yes. So what's um now you become a peace officer, you went to the academy, you know, you did a year uh, you know, academy and field face training. You worked really hard, it took you a year to get hired. Yes. And what should be our approach with you know other human beings if we're interested in dating them? Um, because a lot of cops make this mistake.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:20

Oh man, look, you're just you're going around the bush, man. I'll tell you straight up. So here you are, you have Starbucks, and you know, you're in line, you see her, you know, she's all cute, won't won't. You're looking at, you know, you lost fit, you work out, you do BJJ, you know, all your cops are doing BJJ looking off. You're all slick. And you know, you start talking to her, and hey, can I get your can I get your Instagram, you know, or whatever, or can I get your number? Well, back in my days is like, can I get your number? Can I get your number? Hey, can I get your handle? Whatever, right? TikTok, all that good stuff. And next thing you know, you start dating. Uh God forbid that you're married.

unknown 1:22:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:58

Oh, yeah. Well, that's a whole different topic. But yes, I'm right about it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:02

Come on, man. You know, let's let's let's think clearly here. Let's be let's think about I I I bring a scenario to say that think about how hard you were to get here. Right. And don't ruin it just because you you you uh you know you're having a moment. You're having a m a moment or two, one, or you're having problems at home.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:28

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:28

You know, I I remember back, I was listening to some rad uh, I forgot he was a host on the radio, and he was he made so much sense that you know what? Uh a husband will go through the mistress uh and talk about all the problems and everything that is going on at home with the wife, but he won't go, he won't be at home to discuss the same problems with the wife, you know, very open with the mistress, but not open. Won't fix them. I don't necessarily think it's not about fixing. I just think sometimes we just don't have the courage, you know, to be forthcoming to be forth. I can tell you, you know, and again, I don't want to give a uh, you know, uh digress to you know how women and you know, what's that um uh women are from Venus and men are from ours. So think completely different. But there's a lot more honest women and women that are hardcore to tell you the truth more than a man would, no matter how you present yourself. That's just that's just it. And so what I would say is is that just know you know what you put the radar on and just know who you're vetting. I that's my best advice. Be very careful with who you want to decide to date. Now, if you're single, have at it, man. You know, but again, you have to do some really good vetting.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:54

You have to single or not, you should well no single, period. You should be doing uh vetting.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:01

There is there is way more consequential damages if you're married with kids. Oh, yes, in uniform. Uh, but there can be uh some consequential damages when you're single, either or uh you know what, just be very, very careful. Because here's the deal you can turn around and call the watch commander and say, you know what, I broke up with uh Marlin and he did this, this, this, and this. Oh, yeah. And and here comes the IA. And it's happened. Oh by far. And by the way, if it's your recruits, you also need to know that you are a temporary employee. You're a probationer. You're a probationer until you are vested. That happens at the 18th month. So essentially, from day one of the academy up until the time that you finish your probation, you can get fired no cause at will. So you need to know that. Right. And babes and booze are gonna do it to you, and so is bad debt. You can be in so much dens, still go to Vegas, you know, pop bottles and do your thing, and now you start borrowing money, now you cut corners, you're desperate. What's that saying? Desperate times calls for desperate measures. So it just all depends, but you know, and then again, you know, there's been a lot of successful stories when you meet someone at Starbucks or you meet somewhere at the market, who cares? But just be very, very careful and vet, right? Your research on who you decide to date. So that's my take on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:41

All right, Marlon. Anything else that you would like the listeners to hear when it comes to uh IA?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:47

Uh I I think we kind of covered everything. I just want to uh finish off with uh for one, uh thank you for inviting me. Of course. Uh, you know, this conversation's I think it's super, super important. Of course, you can look me up at Marlon Moraci's show, Tooth Behind the Badge, where a lot of my guests, and you know, you owe me a trip to uh Pasadena uh to have these discussions. I think they're super uh important. And I also have another YouTube channel called the Marlin Report, where the majority of the audience are civilians and I narrate and host uh all these uh body cam uh incidents. So if you're into watching, you know, the crazy Karen's or someone just uh I think one of the latest that I've done uh is uh this lady had three glasses of wine waiting for her uh her air flight, her flight to go home, and it it didn't go well. She she didn't board she didn't board the plane. And it's just bad. And so it gives the viewer uh, you know, a really, really, really good picture of what police officers actually go to. So that's a lot of fun to you know uh never to dissect and break down those senses. So you can find me there. Uh my website is uh www.maraticonsulting uh uh dot com, Marachi Consulting Altogether, right? M-A-R-R-A-C-H-E consulting.com. You know what? I've been fortunate to uh been hired as an expert witness. So if any of your audience has a completed IA and they're facing, you know, termination, and you want me to take a look at your IA, you know, give me a call, man. Okay. Happy to be here and uh thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:33

Thank you, Marlon. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you. Thank you. For those of you already on the job, if you're struggling with anything, Coplink has people 24-7 that are there to help you. Reach out and make sure that you're mentally okay for doing this job. Thank you for watching, everybody. Uh, we're gonna end the episode with our brother in Christ, our brother in law enforcement, Greg Adminson. He's gonna say a prayer for uh everybody that's on duty. Make sure uh we all get home. Thank you for watching.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:16

We come before you with gratitude for the brave men and women who have answered the sacred call to protect and serve. You said in Romans 13, verse 4, that the one in authority is God's servant for your good. Lord, we thank you for every officer who stands the line. We thank you for every officer who runs toward the sound of danger when others run away. We thank you, God, for every officer who brings order out of chaos, and who seeks justice with compassion. Father, as warriors in a fallen world, we draw our strength from you. Your word declares in Psalm one hundred forty four verse one, Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for every battle. Train our hands, Lord, not only for the battles of the street, but for the battles within. Give us courage when fear whispers, give us patience when tempers rise. Grant us wisdom when decisions must be made in an instant. Lord, we ask for your divine protection over every officer in the field. Surround them with your angels as a shield as you promised in Psalm ninety one, and let your peace guard their heart and mind in Christ Jesus. When they grow weary, remind them that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles. Almighty God, you are our strength, you are our shield, you are our ever present help in times of trouble. Father, when the day's work is done, bring them home safely. Restore their spirit, renew their joy, and remind them that they do not fight this battle alone. For you go before them, you go beside them, you are with them. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our commander and king. Amen.