Dying in LA LA Land
This PodCast series from Ron Campise Retired Night Supervisor L.A.P.D. Crime Scene Investigator/Documentarian with 20 years on the job, 13 years of which as a Supervisor on the Night Shift. The busiest shift for Crime Scene Investigation, mostly from 2 to 4 am, "The Hours of the Spirits of the Dead". With over 3000 cases personally investigated and documented everything from run of the mill murders to occasional death of celebrities. And a vast number of fatal accidents, death investigations, robberies, officer involved shootings, drug houses and meth labs with vast amounts of cash, literally falling out of the sky. As the evening super I coordinated with a squad of investigators another 10000 cases. "Dying In LA LA Land" Are Stories of my actual Experiences and/or Experiences of Friends or Co-Workers, So be prepared to be shocked, horrified, amused or just plain disgusted!!
Dying in LA LA Land
"The Naked Dancer and the Lord of the Skid".
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Ron Campise tells the story of a Skid Row (Lord) trying to collect rent from people, who live on a public sidewalk, and other people you meet in Skid Row.
Thank you for listening, Please Check Out my other Episodes.
Hi, I'm Ron Campisi. I worked for the Los Angeles Police Department's Crime Scene Unit as a supervisor for over 13 years. This is another case out of the Dying and Lolaland series. This one's entitled The Naked Dancer and the Lord of a Skid. Downtown LA near Fifth and Wall Street for the last hundred years has been known as Skid Row. And lately this area has expanded. There's all kinds of individuals there. And these are people living on the street, drug users, mentally ill, physically ill, and down and out people, just like you and me at times, who are basically shit out of luck. The thing is though, there's also another element down there. There's uh quite a few nefarious criminals that prey on these people. And what they do is they figure out clever ways to uh make some money. And one thing is this one person he decided to start charging rent to these people. He actually told them that this sidewalk, this area here, and he had enforcers, he said, This is my area, and you're gonna pay. And so he'd charge people in the tents, people in their cardboard houses, and also even people who were in sleeping bags on the street, they'd have to pay something. If they didn't pay, his enforcers would go in and pummel them. And worse, if you were in a tent or you were in a cardboard house, he would set your house on fire, preferably with you in it. Well, this one couple was down there, and they fall into the category of uh just regular people who were shit out of luck, down on their luck. And they were living down there, pretty loving couple, took care of each other, and they decided to take a stand and they said, We're not paying you. And so what the guy did, he has in for his enforcers, they set their tent on fire with them in it. The man he pushed his wife out of the tent. She lived. And I remember going there and she was sitting on the sidewalk. The fire department had been there. He was in the tent still, what was left of it, and he he was burned up. She was sitting there, her face covered in soot, tears, and she kept saying, She goes, I don't understand why this happened to us. I don't understand. And she was using the term God, and she just said, God, I don't understand what's happened here. The detectives were there, the enforcers and this landlord, they were in the wind. They were gone. Homicide detectives were there from Central Division, and we were talking and this and that, and then they finally told me. They go, Oh, the fire department, Los Angeles Fire Department Arson Squad has taken over because they consider this an arson murder. And they actually have their own detectives there that are also firemen. And what they did is they took over the investigation. So we were basically wrapping it up. Did use the term rap because it's because Holly was so close. Well, you know, I was there, I was looking on the street, and you know, in the middle of the street, there was this naked man dancing, and I just couldn't believe it. He was dancing some kind of really strange dance, shooting his arms up in the air, shaking his booty, doing this and that, and I was looking and he was completely naked and dancing in the street, and I said, Man, that's a that's a fruit dance he's doing. And he was, I don't know what he was doing it for to appease whatever demons he had at the time. But I talked to the detectives, like, oh, are you gonna do something about this? Is he breaking any laws? And they go, you know, we're ignoring the whole thing. And the reason why. You gotta remember, we're homicide detectives. He didn't kill anybody, so we're just gonna ignore it. But of course he could kill himself eventually. And so the thing is though, he's dancing in the street, you got a person burned up in a tent, and you got all these people who are living on the skid. And that's the last thing the detective told me. They go, Well, Ron, they go, You do know, this is the skid.