Inside Seattle’s Street Beat With Photog Steve

We track Seattle’s after-hours reality with Photog Steve, from Aurora’s street economy and weekend mass-casualty risks to the quiet brutality of weekday targeted shootings. We push past spin on surveillance, courts, and online predators to ask what actually works.

• Aurora Avenue’s entrenched street-level trade and weak enforcement
• Youth gun violence rising despite lower overall homicides
• Pioneer Square shootings, nightlife dispersals, and crowd risk
• Cameras, Flock data, and real-time centers as early intervention
• Contract pitfalls, audits, and civil liberties guardrails
• Child exploitation case, lowered bail, and system failures
• ICAC tip volume versus limited resources and prosecution thresholds
• Why naming gang violence precisely matters for policy
• Green River contrasts, erased footage recovery, and forensic advances
• Dating apps, CTAC hotels, and how tools reshape behavior
• New projects: court coverage, cold case pilot, and Religion Business streaming

Please do: You can get on Amazon and stream Religion Business. It’s a seven-part series

Transcript

Opening And Guest Intro

VO 0:01

Welcome to U.S. Phenomenon, where possibilities are endless. Put down those same old headlines. It's time to expand your mind and question what if. From paranormal activity to UFOs, Bigfoot sightings, and unsolved mysteries. This is U.S. Phenomenon.

Mario 0:19

From the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of the 1962 World's Fair, the Space Central. Good evening. I'm your host, Mario Magagna. This is U.S. Phenomenon. Tonight, we take you to the streets, the eerie streets of the illustrious metropolis of Seattle. Tonight we have Faux Talk Steve, a passionate visual teller, someone who captures some amazing images and footage and tells a story. Faux Talk Steve has been out here pounding the pavement for such, I mean, I think it's been almost we'll get him on, we'll ask him, but he's been pounding the pavement for such a long time. And in a matter of the day of social media and how fast these stories have to be turned around, in traditional media, Steve has taken what most of us are seeing in these clips and pounding pavement, but then getting it out to the masses on different social avenues. Twitter, well, X, um, you know, Instagram, things of that nature, Facebook. I mean, Steve is plugged in, and it's amazing how much Steve Fotox Steve81 has become an icon in the city. He's like the Dan Rather on on reporting. People are now taking videos and they're like, oh, it's Steve. Let's get a picture with Steve. It is my pleasure to welcome back to U.S. Phenomenon. Uh Steve Hickey, welcome back to uh the show, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Thanks for having me back. I've been looking looking forward to doing this.

The Persona Of Photog Steve

Mario 1:53

You know what's crazy? It's like I I I know that I'm sure you I know you're not doing this for the fame because we know that you're out here pounding pavement, um, covering some I mean, you cover some gruesome stories uh from the young lady to that um that uh that former uh uh count was it a council member that was a part or I forget. City council member from Bothville, yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, you've covered some really horrific stories. You've cut covered some interesting stories, the Hellcat Kid. Um I mean your stories vary, but what's crazy to me is you don't you're recognizable. Everyone sees you pound, you know, and then at night when you're doing work, people are like, oh, what's up? It's Fotox Steve. Like, and you know, you're getting the recognition where you're not seeing a lot of that. You're like you're like the cool Dan Rathers, the pay Peter Jennings, like you're out here doing you're reporting, you're getting some really great stuff, maybe even breaking some uh some stories. Um but it it it's fun to watch how much people have really come to want to spend time with you. Uh I know for our conservative uh friends and some of our other people from our different radio stations, I gotta ask you this. I know recently I I and I love this idea, is that they it's just not the same game. Like I know there was a viewing party that you were helping promote at a uh gentlemen's club. Um were did they actually take that place? It was still it they were multi-purposing that uh venue, right? Is that I was like, great idea, right? I mean that's yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, it's you know, it's it's a gentleman's club. It was they hit me up and I was like, yeah, I'm I'm with it. Um I'm I'm into it. Put some stuff out there. It you know, it was kind of hit and miss. I think some people were kind of shocked. We didn't put anything up. That wasn't right, it wasn't a graphic situation, but um, I think it it it speaks towards kind of the the broad audience that takes in the work. Yeah. Um, I don't always talk about this publicly, but I I think it's known that there's a lot of law enforcement that follows what I do, but there's a lot of it's both sides of the street.

Mario 4:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Um, a lot of what makes me able to do what I do is actually a lot of the girls who are out there on Aurora are a huge source of information of what's going on. Um, you know, people from all parts of the world of the spectrum are fine setting in info and take in the work and don't feel judged. This work's not judgment in any way, shape, or form. And I think that's resonated. And I think having a person, an individual has really helped. And, you know, a lot of the work is very serious, but I try to put up some other stuff and just kind of have fun with it. And uh, I was, you know, I had an Instagram account before I was doing this, and so there's sometimes I just like to put up something kind of in the stories, you know, that expire every 24 hours is more kind of if you if you follow enough and watch the stories, that's more my sense of humor, and then some serious stuff. And then the posted stuff's the more serious end. And I think people kind of realize that and realize who I am. I'm just a human being, and and and uh, you know, I think I think it's good to go out there and show everything that is going on in the city. So I had no problem promoting. I thought it was fun. I was glad they hit me up. Um, I don't know what the turnout was completely compared to a normal turnout for them, but it was it was a good experience.

Aurora Avenue’s Street Economy

Mario 5:17

You know what's interesting because I've I've uh yeah, I mean I've I've been in the business a long time, 20 plus years. I had worked for a top 40 radio station, one of the biggest ones here uh on the dial, uh smaller on the dial, 93.3. Uh and and so you know they would you know promote different types of events and things of that nature when it was a hip hop uh CHR rhythmic radio station. But what's interesting to me, Steve, and especially in the Seattle area, um that's not the first time I've seen something like this go down now. And I know this is not why we're having you on, but it's just as we can, you know, continue to talk, people aren't going to these places as much as they used to. Um and so they're looking for ways to generate revenue. And I know that there was another place that was doing like a uh EDM show or something of that nature. So they're looking at these venues, the and they're large venues. Some of these venues are very they're capable of holding an EDM type concert. So it's interesting to see what these spaces are doing. So uh good on them and good on you know these different uh avenues to you know, you know, tr to create non-traditional revenue. Uh Steve, when you were talking about uh Aurora, you know, I it was interesting. I think I recently saw something that you know you can take the buses between blah, blah, blah, this time and this time, but at night, you know, the night the streets belong to the gangs and things of that nature. Is how are things up there on the on uh Aurora Aurora, you know?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Not a lot has changed. You know, it's pretty active up there. There's a lot of prostitution, a lot of street level stuff going on up there. Um, I don't see that slowing down anytime soon. Um, you know, they've tried different type of emphasis type units and so on, but I don't think the city itself takes it particularly seriously. I think PD would like to put resources to it and their staffing's coming back up. Um for those who work in in vice type operations, not to say that they're not up there doing doing work all the time, but I think from a city leader standpoint, it's just not taken that seriously. So when that's what you have, yeah, PD will do it. They'll keep they'll kind of keep it to a certain level at all times. If it spikes, they'll throw in resources. But if it stays at that level or lower, which it never really lowers, it just kind of holds right at that ceiling of where it's allowed to go, then that's what's going to continue.

Mario 7:30

Is it time for the city to start thinking of maybe choking out uh these pimps and making it legal? Do you think it's time for to I mean if if we're starting to get this type of uh uh uh would it's would it be I don't wanna wanna say threshold, is it acceptance that I the word I'm looking for here where is it time to start looking at maybe legalizing prostitution so that it's a lit legitimate business for for these young ladies, uh maybe to bring down sex trafficking, um to create uh tax revenue, uh a newer trend non-traditional for the state of Washington, for the city itself. Uh uh just something and I know that a lot of people are like, oh my god, why is Mario talking about these things? I I'm just trying to think creatively, like if if it if we're gonna have some type of tolerance for you know this type of stuff that's going on on this area, do we make that a red light district? You know, is it time to finally just say, you know what? Okay, this is where it's gonna be. It is regulated now. Um you have to you have to have your test uh, you know, if you're going to be in that area, um it's going to be you know, it's gonna be governed and and sanctioned, just like you know, some of these pot shops that are out here now.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, as as good as it sounds on paper, we I think we're so far away from being able to fully put that together. If you look at areas where that's been done, let's take Vegas.

Mario 8:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I think people who haven't been there think this must just be on the strip. It's not, it's miles out, it's its own separate, it's an it might as well be an island.

Mario 8:59

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

We don't really have a place like that to do that out here, and so I think it's gonna be really hard to just say, well, okay, we're gonna have these uh buildings that that will support that, and so it doesn't the Seattle's a pretty diverse area, and you're gonna have schools, you're gonna have parks, you have all these other things that it's gonna be, you'd have to, you've got to go back to a city planning level to make that happen. And I don't think that again I come back to we just don't really have a serious effort from city leaders to look at that and solve that. They like to say things here and there. I think when there's crackdowns on Johns and crackdowns on the girls and crackdowns on pimps, they say, Oh, we should legal it, legalize it, and they just leave it at that. There's no real conversation. For you to pull that off, I I you know I know the area pretty well, and I'm not thinking of a spot you could really just say, okay, we're gonna designate this and we are gonna plan it as that. You would have to most likely put together an area and then remove other elements from it. Um, and I don't mean illegal, I'm talking the the the institutional, the schools, the daycares, the parks, the all those other things that need to be moved elsewhere to get to that level. I don't see it. And I think I I I personally think it's it's one of these things where it affects people because they see it, but it does they don't really think it affects them, and they're not gonna put that level to it unless they think it affects them.

Mario 10:18

It's just interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So they can say, you know, they can say, oh, we care about this and we care about that. Uh until it affects their life more personally, it's not gonna be anything they're gonna take seriously.

Mario 10:28

No major crimes. I mean, I we you know, I I think it was maybe sometime last year there was a lot of shootings going on in that area, a lot of I I think it may have been territorial fights at that uh at that juncture. How how's the gang um how's the gang unit doing? I mean, are they working overtime in the city right now?

Legalization Debate And City Planning Limits

SPEAKER_01 10:49

You know, they're working. I I I'll tell you this we just had this double homicide down uh near Rainier Av uh by Rainier Beach High School. Uh two young men. I know one was at least 18, the other one might be 17, so it might be a young man and a child, but um, right around the age of young men. Uh they were done with school that day. They were near a bus stop, a city bus stop. I don't know if they're going to get on the bus or were just around that area, and somebody came up and blasted them both, left them dead there on the pavement. And both of these boys were set to graduate this year. And that comes from family, that comes from friends. That was that was what their plan was. There has been an insinuation, and we'll call it a credible insinuation, that there's a gang violence component to this. Whether or not they were gang members or not does seem to be up for dispute. A lot of times the families dispute that, but there's a gang component somewhere in there. And it's frustrating when city leaders came together, there was a press conference, and Chief Sean Barnes, who who I like in a lot of ways, uh, if he was to see this, this is, you know, this is a very specific thing that stuck out to me that uh was was frustrating. And that was that uh uh one of the journalists there said, Hey, can you speak to the gang violence issue? And his response, I'm gonna very much summarize it, but he did use this exact term. He says, I don't think we have a gang violence problem, I think we have a group violence problem. And I just was kind of like, man, come on. We're we're we're we're creating a family of G words now. Gang violence is okay to call it gang violence. People from that community are okay with the term gang violence. They're okay saying that that is a thing. And I think you're actually better saying that that is a thing than trying to say it's group. If they're so worried about um calling out a certain segment of the public or villainizing a segment of the public, to me, saying group does exactly that because now you've just blanketly put it across that, well, people got together. This is gang violence. There's a very specific thing going on there. There's a multitude of different gangs operating out there. Now, at that age, um, you know, there certainly can be a debate of did this person know of a gang and say they were part of it and weren't really, you know, we can get into the the tikky-tacky argument, but fundamentally, that's where a lot of the motivation of this comes from. And I think isolating it as a specific thing is better than trying to come up with a new phrase like group violence. And I believe, you know, I talked to a lot of people who work in that organization, those who are in these units that are now like the G VRU gun violence reduction unit, they themselves say we're just a new version of gang, the gang unit. And we would much prefer to just be the gang unit and say that's the thing we focus on, because otherwise, you when you call it group violence, when you call it G VRU, it really becomes more like you're just coming into this entire space of people and not isolating it out. It's what you know, we've talked about it in protests in the past. There's really we we're great at protesting out here. You know, no kings win. Whether or not you agree with no kings is secondary to the No Kings march, when exactly as you would hope, a protest could go. That what happened later that night was a different faction of people came out and did some things down by the federal building. And the city's stance is to just not acknowledge it and just say, hey, we just want to talk about the good thing today. You can do both. You can say there was a great thing today, 75,000 people came in, and it was next to flawless. It was unity, it's whatever you want to say it was, and then this other thing happened. And we're gonna treat this other thing as an other thing. And you know, that that was the thing that really stuck out to me outside of the the tragedy of two young people dying. Was why can't we just get the the verbiage right here? Call it what it is and keep it separate.

Mario 14:36

And it and it's sad too, because when you think about uh young men of this, you know, of this young stature living in the in the city in the central district or that area, um wrong, you know, bad you know, if you're at the wrong place at the wrong time, it's just of a super it I'm not trying to belittle or you know bring this down to any level, but it's terrible to think that two young men who had probably their their whole lives ahead of them smoked out for some stupid thing. And what's crazy is how many times, Steve, you you may have been in a situation like that as a young kid. I remember growing up in in uh South Seattle, like uh CTAC before uh you know, off of uh Pacific Highway and uh and 208th Street, which is like right down there on International Boulevard, is what its fancy name is called now. But on uh, you know, I I grew up over in that area. Des Moines went to high school in that area, but I was walking back from a McDonald's and um I was walking with traffic and some dude, kids, threw a can of soda and it missed me. Missed me by two feet. But if that would have hit me in the head, you know, who knows what it would have happened? You know, I mean, I it's it's like the grace of a higher power, just I was, you know, just barely missed me, and it's unfortunate in a situation like this. With that being said, Steve, with these two young men who have been, you know, tragically gunned down, are we seeing more gun violence right now? Are we seeing more gang activity in the city?

Youth Gun Violence And Data Trends

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Sure. So uh first and foremost, we we have metrics that track homicides and violent crime, and those have been trending down now for over a year. However, and so let's first establish that. That is a fact. Those this is backed by data. Uh, we regardless of what your perception is, those are facts. Now, let's dive in deeper. Youth violence that involves gun violence has gone out. That is also a fact. And when you have younger people, with also a lot of them have switches on these guns, these you know, we're modified Glocks, a lot more rounds get fired. Uh, those types of weapons are much harder to control. When you have a handgun, it's not meant to continually rapid fire. The way you hold it's gonna be different. When you want something that's more of a machine gun, usually you're gonna want a seat in your, you know, into your shoulder, hold, you know, hold like that. When you're just out there like this, it's kicking and more people get hit. So you have much higher firepower, more use with it. They're using it whether in the commission of another crime or for their protection or to go out and do something on an offense move. That has picked up. Uh, what has also happened in the last three weeks, for those of you who follow, going, man, we've seen you all over the place. What do you mean it's down? Again, I spoke in a year term. What we have right now, I don't know if it's a trend or an anomaly, but for the first three weeks of the year, we really weren't having much anything, which is not uncommon in uh January. It's a cold month. A lot of these types of crime, these types of shootings are of opportunity, and you don't have as much opportunity when it's 20-something degrees out. What happened though, the last week of January and going into February was a steep increase. You had multiple double homicides. You've had a number of other shootings. There was a shooting in Pioneer Square that struck four, killed one. Uh, I have watched video of that of the shooter. Um, based on his posture, this was not somebody who was scared or uh felt he couldn't get away. This is somebody, you know, from a body language and posture standpoint, his arms are crossed like this, he's holding the gun, he's coming up, walking, his shoulders are broad, he's puffed up, um, and he goes and inserts himself into the situation. At that point, he he was already kind of involved in it, but he's then gonna assert himself into the situation and then starts firing. Now, in that one, multiple shot. He may have fired the deadly round, but once he starts firing, a lot of gunfire goes off. You have four down.

Mario 18:50

And that is that the one was that at the hookah bar? Is that right? Uh the one that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

No, this was at the uh sinking ship garage. I'm gonna put up pictures probably tonight. I've got some more on that one. And oh, yes. That one was it was a bad situation, yeah.

Mario 19:05

That's right, that's right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Yep. The hookah bar one seems to be so that the hookah bar tried to dispute that really it wasn't um their problem. This just happened in the vicinity. Uh, Jeremy Harris, who those of you uh who may not be familiar with him or aren't as familiar, really good guy to follow. He is on Como as well, so you can follow him there, but a solid guy to follow. Um, I think I I don't know if I've talked about him on here before, but he and I are friends too, so he's I'm sure he's heard me say versions of this, but I truly think he's one of the best out here. And it's in his presentation, and I think his worldview is kind of similar to mine that public safety is not a political issue, and he really approaches his work that way. And the way he goes in and goes after these things is is phenomenal. And he's he's he's a killer in this space. He uh dove into that one and actually got footage from the hookah bar that they said, you know, fully exonerated them of any involvement, and he reviewed it and said, Well, you know, maybe you weren't involved, but you weren't completely not involved either. And I would I would ask people to go back and take a look at that. Yeah. Um, but you know, and I think the hookah bars are are an interesting situation. You have where they're staying late, a lot of them are not following the uh rules and regulations that are in place, but they're operating at a time there's really no enforcement either. And that hasn't really been looked at as a law enforcement issue to go and regulate hookah bars and operating houses, they're not regulating businesses in that way. Maybe they should, but they're they're just not. And so these just kind of continue to happen. They get violations, they get cited, it continues. But when you have a place where everybody who's already been out drinking can then go and continue till 4 or 5 a.m., it's gonna happen. I don't know that you know you you could say it's a group of people. I don't I don't know if it's a group of people or not. I think it's the way that those businesses are operating and are allowed to continue operating. Whether or not it is uh by by the regulations is secondary. They're not following it, they're really just continuing to operate a certain way and it's not being managed.

Mario 21:08

Well, it's cra crazy because you think of that and you you you think of the hookah bar, and then uh you know, even from back in my day, we would go and you know eat at honeycore, and uh obviously it's uh it's a different crowd at that point in time. You're going to eat food, but um it I don't know. I mean it goes back again, it goes back to like you you kind of pick your poison, right? You're like, okay, well I'm gonna go to the hookah bar. I know it's a vibe. Um this ain't Vegas. This city is not, you know what I mean? It's not a 24-hour, you know, where things are always going. It's if you want that type you're not gonna get that in in in this city or in most major cities. It's you you may see it in New York. I I I just Seattle's in built for that kind of uh for that that kind of infrastructure. And you know, I know that that that hookah bar uh has been notorious for having issues, but Pioneer Square Steve, as you know, has you know had has you know had its you know turnarounds and you know it's kind of a a as they re you know they re-refresh the the that core there you're starting to see you know warehouser move in, a new pizza joint, the pho place there, uh LSC, which is no longer LSC, that's a new restaurant, bar. Um there's the chicken place there, you got Trinity, which is a 18 and uh 1821 slash, and I I I I find that to be quite interesting that there's that. Um is the is is the nightlife in that area still feels to me a little seedy. And I and I still see that um you know, you go two box down, you have one of the longest running nightclubs around, one of the longest uh people who, you know, X Stadium has been there for quite so many years, has been doing their thing. I mean, I know that they've been in and they've had their their problems, not saying they've had problems, but they've had problems outside of the venue, just like probably the same thing with the hookah bar, where these act these activities are happening outside in these general areas. What's interesting to me when you think about all these different areas, including you know, people coming out from you know the nightclub being dispersed into the city, just almost like drunk vomiting, and no one's really throwing out, but it's just like a sea of individuals who are maybe some maybe overserved, uh, some maybe, you know, you know, so everyone's out in the street, you got up the street half a block, you have all those dispersals, you have all the dispersals from these different nightclubs. Are are we seeing that I don't know, is I I don't I don't want to say territorial situation, is it just a wrong place at the wrong time, is really what this seems to be, Steve, with it like half of what's going on in the city.

Pioneer Square Shootings And Nightlife Risks

SPEAKER_01 24:02

I think there definitely is a sorry, I'm back and forth here. The law enforcement just got shot at, shot towards in North Salis. So give me an idea when this was filmed for those watching us later, and uh SPD just shot the person, and I believe I haven't gotten confirmation yet if it's fable or not. So that's what I'm back and forth sending a photographer up there, and I'll be headed up there after this. Um, I I think there's a mix. You know, if you look, let's take the sinking ship one. Now, nobody in that desired deserved to get shot, but there really was a dispute between two people, and there are four people shot. You get the same thing in a lot of these other ones, especially down in Pioneer Square, and you come back to these Glock switch type situations where there is this, there was actually uh a mass casualty in Pioneer Square, the other side of the block. So for those who are familiar, you got the sinking ship, then you got that there's this like pizza place that was 24 hours that just finally closed down, actually. And the sky skyway mart or something's called murder mart, for those who are around there, and on the other side is this parking lot, and that had four people shot in it. And uh one of the fatal in that was a female who had nothing to do with it. She was just there and she caught one in the head. And there was another person in there who uh may have been fatal as well, who had nothing to do with it. And then uh there were two others who didn't die. I think one of them had something to do with it, and it had something to do with it as relative. When I say had something to do with it, I don't mean they they may have not even pulled the trigger, but they were involved in some sort of an altercation that then escalated. And, you know, we see these a lot in these these types, especially the Thursday, Friday, mostly Friday, Saturday type shootings. When you get into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you got a different type of shooter who goes out. They're typically going out looking for somebody. They've got a target in mind, they've got somebody they want to go and either intimidate or shoot. And the way they shoot, uh, and the the lethality of it is higher. We think of Friday and Saturday being it, well, because you just have more of it. But there I I've looked at statistics in the past that actually show the more the more deadly shootings are those Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Uh there you get also uh domestic violence situations where somebody crosses that threshold. And at that point, you know, that's not that's a very different type of shooter. They generally have finally hit a point where they've decided they want to kill, and then they're gonna kill themselves. Um, so again, lethality goes up, it's much more close proximity. Uh, it might be, you know, you're probably arm's length away, you're not across a parking lot. So I I would love to see them do a really solid data on that. I have not found anything like that. The um uh gun violence archive is really good at capturing data of shootings. There, I don't I don't know how they I'm guessing they must have an AI component to it. I've contributed to that as well. However, it's really just shooting and casualty. That's that's the count. Um, there's not much more depth. Now, it gives you an ability to know what happened, know the date it happened, the time it happened, the exact location it happened, and then you could dive deeper. But to take it to that, I don't know when we'll be able to get to that. I'm hoping AI will get there in the next year or two, right? AI is great in a lot of ways, but to be able to dive through that, because it is such a large uh amount of data, to be able to verify that, I don't know where we're gonna be at. I'm hoping in the next year we can get to that point, though, year or two.

Mario 27:23

Is it time, Steve, to bring in the uh the cow videos, the video cameras? Is it time to bring in some of those into the uh uh Pioneer Square where these hotspots have been uh notoriously? Uh is this would would those cameras would that detra detour some of this uh activity, this uh this violence?

Surveillance, Flock, And Real-Time Policing

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Do you think you know I think it's a mix. On the front end, it there's always been this argument that well, police don't stop crime, they they investigate crime. I and we have data to show when you have more presence, crime goes down. What you will have happen most likely is you will put these cameras in place. It will take a few unfortunate situations before it really becomes clear, like, hey, these work, people are getting caught. Where I think those are better though, and and I've talked to SPD about this. My my goal, hopefully in the next here month or so, I'm gonna actually get into their uh Real Crime Data Center, which is it really is kind of like a CSI episode. You go into their screens all on the wall, and you can see all these, you know, and these are like 8K cameras, these are not your SDOT-style cameras. Right. Where they're saying they've got data to back it, and they've sent me in scenarios where it's happened, is where they're able to actually see indicators of something starting to spur up, and then they come and get involved. There was a shooting recently in Pioneer Square. Uh multiple were hit, but it was uh actually it was a security guard who got involved, and the cops are right there. They heard the first shot. I believe the security guard was not justified in firing his weapon. It was an armed security guard, but the cops were there before 911 was even called and got it under control. So that does help. And so I think those cameras can help. Um, there is a lot of debate right now on these cameras. I think the debates focus mostly on flock, but then becomes this thing like, well, if flock can be used the wrong way, can't everything be used the wrong way? And I I've always come back to okay, well, what's the number? And I don't mean that facetiously. There is a number that everybody has. They may not know the number yet, but they may find out one day what that number is where they say this is no longer acceptable. We have to do more. And there's also in any society, any civilized society, any free society, we have to accept there's going to be a certain amount of bad things that will happen because it's not worth going so totalitarian to make it all stop, right? But I don't think cameras are totalitarian action, but that's kind of where that mix always is. It's like, okay, does it warrant that? And until it does, the means seem so disproportionate. But I I think these these closed circuit cameras, the federal government can't get access to it. Um you are in an open public space. I would argue that you are viewed by more cameras than you have any idea of, anyways. Sure. At least these will have regulations and how they'll be used and there'll be guidelines on how they be used. I would like to see more of it. I think Flock, there is a greater debate to happen there. I think what happened with Flock in this state specifically, which UW did a great job of showing what was happening, but I think the I think the agencies did a poor job of jumping on that and solving it. You know, what they found was Auburn, the way Auburn's contract was with Flock, there was access from a federal level that Auburn did not intend. I truly believe did not intend. I've talked to people who were involved in those contracts. They did not intend, did not want, did not know. But there were other areas, other agencies that did see that coming, and their attorneys stopped it. Unfortunately, they didn't then talk to each other and say, hey, did you catch this when you were looking at that? Or are you thinking about getting it? Did you know about this? They just treat everything like they're all in their own silo. And so then as Auburn becomes an issue, everybody starts looking like, oh, geez, this is a bigger problem. And so what happens? It just starts getting shut off. And it's it can be frustrating because there are uh certain scenarios the other night would have been a perfect example. There were three females shot and a male on the run, which I think they're still trying to figure out if male is suspect or possibly victim component as well. But the they had a makeup vehicle, uh, I believe they had a license plated vehicle. They did not have flock active down there to be able to follow that vehicle, and they would have been able to do so. In the end, they got them anyways. But uh, I have seen Flock in action in these uh closed circuit TVs like Seattle have very powerful tool. And I feel they are less invasive in your life than just having more police out there on the street all the time. Sure. You have a better chance of being able to go out and have interactions without any police, any perceived police involvement when they're using those systems than just putting more cops out on the street.

Mario 31:46

It you know, since we're we're talking about city nightlife and things of that nature. Our our guest tonight, Photog Steve 81. Steve, you you know, you you you saw the trend happen in uh another district or neighborhood. Belltown kind of went dead after the 2020, you know, pandemic. Um you know, you had a ton of bars that were down there, but there was a ton of there was a ton of crime back in those days. Uh pre, you know, I I mean I can tell you right now, I was at three shootings. Uh uh one in Belltown, one on Capitol Hill. Uh and I know that notorious uh East Pike and Broad has always been notorious for uh uh a high activity of uh crime up in that area. Um I I mean you you're talking to someone uh of a 20-year plus veteran of you know working in in broadcast, you know, engineering or whatever the case may be for radio stations. I mean to be at three different radio broadcasts that had you know shootings out of it, you know, one on uh I think uh Cortura now is a bar. It's uh at the East Pike, it's like 916. 916 was a bar that was shot up back in the day. There was a uh a football player, uh a Seahawk player that was shot right like right parallel to us in the vehicle. I mean, it's just crazy stuff that uh that went down. Um there seems to be since the pandemic, some of these neighborhoods have, you know, the bars have not reopened in these neighborhoods. You know, are we gonna start seeing more? I I know that there have been, you know, someone saying that they're gonna open another nightclub or a lounge down in the Belltown area at Amber. Um for those that are interested in continuing to be a part of the city and go through and and enjoy some of the rich culture that's here. You know, you got the alg you have the fine dining, you have uh, you know, speak easy, things of that nature. They these neighborhoods have been uh regentified. You know, you've seen a lot of that going on in the you know, down in the South Lake Union, uh in Belltown, some in Belltown, uh, and then you know, kind of moving its way through the uh the corridor there, which you know, I I I kind of dismiss the entire corridor as a wasteland to me. Anything on third, uh, that whole corridor is garbage to me. You you go back down to the waterfront, and that's always what I end up telling individuals who come to the city. Waterfront, Space Needle, you know, uh you can go to the international district, but you they you know you're at your own risk at that point too. But I know that we've been talking about uh really focusing the last couple, you know, last you know, 30 minutes in regards to just the city. Steve, what do you uh outside of what's been going on within the city, what are some uh other stories that you've been like working on, investigating that I know that in the past that you and I have talked about some of these horrific crimes, you know, the uh you know, crimes against you know, children, things of that nature. You had spent a lot of time working on some of these horrific cases. Um you know what what's new in your world that you're uh working on and things of that nature?

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah, there's a couple. There's one that I'll probably start putting a very small amounts out on this weekend. There is a 23-year-old man who earlier in 2025 was caught up and accused in a case that was more of an ICAC component where he was trading nudes with very young children online, uh sending his genitalia, getting pictures of them, single-digit age children. And this case then started, it opens, he's going through it, he's uh got monitoring software, so he can't be able to do certain things on his devices because he's made bail and he's out. He gets uh allegedly gets another phone and then uses that phone, creates new aliases, and contacts a girl who's at an uh Enum Claw area. And uh I believe she's about 11 years old, begins talking with her, then goes and meets her and violently rapes her. And during that rape, 911 was called because it was in his car. Uh police show up. There's then a pursuit. She's in the car. They stop that pursuit pretty early on. They get her out, they get her aid, they arrest him. Uh, he then makes a statement about, oh, I have this previous uh thing on my record, this is gonna make it worse. They get a search warrant for the car. Ultimately, the search warrant turns out that he has this other phone uh that has access to the things he's not supposed to have access to to communicate. Um, what stuck out to me though, and I don't usually go after judges by name, I'll I'll mention things, you know, decisions made in the court system. This will be a little bit different. When the prosecution put together the probable cause and then the charging docs, they asked for, I believe it's a million dollars bail, which is not disproportionate when you have somebody with an active case uh with single-digit aged children, who then is given bail and then dramatically increases what he's doing to a violent rate. That's spectr you've gone really from uh one end of spectrum completely to the other side and showing that he's willing, if he has done what they accuse him of doing, of taking many other additional steps. And the judge says a million is just too much. We'll drop it down to a uh, I believe it was 200,000. Basically dropped it uh just about 80%. And I cannot, for the life of me, and there's a lot of times I'll see these where you see the number dropped, and then I read it and I go, I don't know that I would have made the same decision, but I see your thought process, right? And I'll kind of give a pause, like, okay, you've been through this, you have precedent you have to work with. Uh, I can tell you I go through these a lot. I cannot find any kind of justifiable reason for the judge to say, yeah, you know what, let's let's drop it down 80%, especially that early on. And the judge did. And the person's then made bail and is out. And so that one's gonna be an aggressive one. Um, I found out about this um through some people in Enum Claw, and then found out I have a very close connection to this one. And so I am going to uh put a little extra effort into this. I have a connection to it, and I want to be able to call out the absurdity of this situation where you have detectives doing good work. This case has a potential too to go federal, being that he was using uh it's multi-jurisdictional, uh, repeat offender. We're gonna see if it goes that direction, but this judge will get uh some sunlight put on them. So another one that I am working on is go ahead.

Belltown, Capitol Hill, And Post-Pandemic Nightlife

Mario 38:22

Uh you know, uh if you're listening right now and you're like, what the hell is going on right now? If you're listening and you're like, what can I do to protect my children against you know these types of things? It's so interesting. I know that there are there are avenues for us as parents because I am still, and you are too a parent of you know, of a teen uh for me, I'm a teenage, you know, girl dad who will eventually you know be 18, but it is so you've got to be on top of your game in regards to what's going on with with your children. Um Steve, you you know, you know, uh it there was a joke that we uh we were saying the other day at lunch, you know, I'm you know, I'm I'm you know, my birthday is coming up here, and I'm gonna be, you know, I'm gonna be a year older, I'll be in at 48. And I mean, I'm part of that that generation of, you know, you know, 56k modem, you know, the whole AOL, being in these chat rooms and things of that nature. We joke because we were like, oh yeah, we I used to talk to, you know, you know, Cindy 22 or whatever, you know, and I I'm sure I was not talking to Cindy 22. Um but what's what's interesting is like someone's like, yeah, well, the internet was way safer. I'm like, I don't think it was. It was not. We had no clue what was on the other side of the spectrum, on the other side of that, you know, that connection. Obviously, that that was the the window of you got mail and you know you were talking to people you know via tech, you know, via chat rooms and things of that nature. But this has been going on for decades, you know. We're talking 30 plus years now of of of of how this has become. What I would tell for me, I was able to put in place, uh, and you can do it, and you can look with with whichever your your your devices, there are systems in place that can protect your kids against social media and things of that nature. Uh, but it it I would say that when you if you're listening to Steve talk about this horrific crime that has taken place, uh, it is not the victim's fault by any means. It's we need to make sure that we are protecting our children to give them the right tools so that they aren't in in a place where they're getting you know abducted and things of that nature, where you look at the situation and you're like, what what the hell what the hell's going on? You know, it's like you look at the situation, you're like, hey, by the way, honey, you're you can only have so much screen time, you can only do this, this, and this, and that's just the way it's gonna be, right? I mean, that's just this is how it is, honey. And uh, Steve, uh, I know you're working on this case, uh, there are other cases out there, but isn't it crazy? I mean, don't I mean how do you how do you sleep at night? I mean, how uh it's hard, right? I mean, you become numb to the stuff. I mean, it's it's crazy. I mean, it's just not yeah, it's not it's like the Epstein stuff, you know what I mean? And that's a whole nother uh you know, like, wait, what are you talking about? Behind a piece of thing? Like, you're like, what is this you know I I I think the average person who may be listening to the show was probably horrified by what you you know what you're sharing with us, but it's it's real. It is so real.

Child Exploitation Case And Court Failures

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, I think you know, so so what you're talking about uh so in the 90s, right? In early internet. I I think the I don't know that the amount of predators has increased. I think that risk was always there. I think the interactive nature of the communications is what has changed a bit. Back then, you know, for you to share pictures of each other, there were additional steps. It wasn't just in your hand where you could make the communication and make um the the the con I don't want to use content itself dumbs it down, but where you could create the meet you couldn't create medium with that piece, except for communication, and that has changed it. It also means that you can have predators start um you know the the the grooming process, right? It's communication, then it goes and it goes and it goes. Where I think back then it really there was more conversation that then led to a meetup, and I think that's where sometimes people who are adults now back then think that it wasn't as scary. It was the person you were dealing with was probably just as scary as what's out there today. The tools were different. And you know, I as I've I've been trying to go down, it's it's an interesting thing to try and go down the process of learning about from a statistical standpoint because that's where I'm at. It's like, okay, what is what are the tools that are going on? It's uh I am worried, I I half joke. Like, there's I'm probably on some watch lists. I'm sure there's been some ICAC detectives who have looked and go, oh, it's him. Now these certain, you know, these things make sense. As I've tried to, I've tried to go to like ICAC conventions. You can't go if you're not a commissioned officer, but I think there really is, there's got to be some interesting data out there to kind of explain what is the person doing this, when is it that they decided that this was something they were willing to do? When did these urges start? I think you're dealing more um of an orientation type thing. And an orientation, I think, and miss miscategorize it because it means like, oh, so you're straight, gay, or pedophile. No, this is not the same, but I mean that in the sense that whether you are straight or you are gay, that is who you are. That is who you are as a person. You're not gonna be you can't send them somewhere and get that taken out of them, right? And so I think we need as a society to start seeing it more that way because the the concept of rehabilitation can be. Really difficult with a lot of these cases. And I don't know that there is true rehabilitation. You really have to get more to a fear-based rehabilitation. Like the consequences have to be so bad that you would not risk it. That doesn't because we probably cannot get the urge to stop. And if we can get to that level of realization, I think we can handle this problem much better.

unknown 44:20

Wow.

Mario 44:22

Scary times. I mean, I I I say that because I mean I remember how many times I spent in different chat rooms uh back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

But I I mean, is it oh man, I Th there's also a pushdown in Olympia, and I will be getting into this soon. I've I've wanted to do it again. I don't like my work to be political because I think it's easy for everybody to go to their silos and either one say, see, they're the ones doing it, or two, if you're on the side that you think is is um protecting a certain type of behavior, you then don't want to acknowledge the scale of the problem because then that acknowledges there's a problem not being handled correctly. So if we take that out and look at this as there there's an argument being made right now that especially like these sting type operations, um to catch a predator is one that people are familiar with. We've seen that concept, but streets professional sting operations run by law enforcement, they would like to see the uh penalties drop dramatically if you were caught in a sting operation. And their thought process is, and and and to the point I said about judges earlier, hold with me on this. Yeah, I can understand where they're coming to this. They have anecdotal situations of you have an individual who gets caught in one of these, who is uh simple. They probably have some sort of um uh special need, mental special needs, maybe somewhat undiagnosed, who then get into these. Now that doesn't mean that there's still not a problem. And that's where I would counter back. I don't care how simple you are, to go down the level of graphic conversation that these detectives need to check the box on before they're gonna take you into custody, that's not just simple. But they use these people and say, well, this person otherwise led a life that didn't end up in this. You must have created something that brought them into this. And in turn, we want to lower those consequences. Um my side would be now that I've explained at least the thought process to it, so you can get, you know, understand it's not people wanting to support child molesters, but that's where they're coming from. I've seen enough of these, I've read through enough documents, I've worked enough of these. Uh, that is an oversimplification of the problem, it at minimum, an oversimplification. There's a lot of effort put into these. The bar is relatively high to get to a prosecutable case because they don't, you know, the the amount of times that they have to make sure that the suspect knows that they are underage, knows that they shouldn't be having this conversation. Even as they go to try and meet, they are given multiple off ramps to get out of this situation that they could just easily take and say, I don't know what I was thinking, uh, whatever dispute dispute, I was having too much to drink there, I shouldn't have gotten into this. They will generally actually delay meeting them. Give them a, hey, I can't meet this time, something's come up, and then see if they'll come back and try again. That's what actually generally happens. And so when you look at that, this person had multiple times to not be in this situation. They it's not like they were going back and going, oh, yeah, you haven't talked to me in a couple of days. Let's get back in the conversation. No, that's the suspect making that communication. So for those reasons, I don't think uh we should be looking at lowering the penalties for that. I think we should be increasing. Now, if there are um mental health options out there, I would love to see it. I'd love to see it with data. I'd love to see a large set of data and let's have that conversation. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying I haven't seen it. But there are smart people out there who say they they have options. Great, let's see them and let's have an honest conversation. But until that has been shown, I don't think lowering the penalties of the only tools we have in place is what makes sense.

Mario 48:09

Are we seeing an uptick in these crimes? Or are we seeing it, you know, in like the last year? Is this are we predominantly seeing more an increase in these crimes in these, you know, crimes against you know children? Are we seeing more of those?

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Or is it just you know, so there is an up an increase. What and this is where we come back to well, are we creating more uh predators or are are they just getting more tools? I think that they're getting more tools, they're getting more bold. Uh, there are messaging apps out there that are are meant to create anonymity in them or or levels of anonymity that have given predators like this, because a lot of these guys are and females, but mostly men, uh, will communicate with others and figure out, oh, here's an app that works really well for this. There are apps uh that I don't know if they were originally developed to be this, but boy, they very quickly uh became that. Um and I'm not talking Facebook Messenger and Instagram or even um Snapchat. What's the Snapchat? I'm not you know, Snapchat kids use a lot, I'm not even talking the main ones, I'm talking other ones that you may have heard of, um, were more geared towards kids, and then became this. And so as those tools have become available, more have come in. The thing that I think the public doesn't understand, and I don't know why ICAC and other groups don't try and push this out more. I've offered to try and help. Um, but they're they're really prosecuting about 1% of 1% of 1% of the tips they get that come in every month. So that doesn't mean that that's all that was good. When I talked about a high threshold, there is a high threshold. They basically go, hey, here's the ones at the cream of the crop on top that with the amount of resources you have, you can get a really high percentage of conviction on. And then everything else just gets eliminated. There's a whole bunch of stuff in there. You know, there's some stuff on the bottom that got a lot of these apps are um the good apps, apps I did use the name of, are pretty good about sending in tips. And they're the bulk of this information that comes in. It starts with an AI um alert and then gets reviewed by a person within that company and then gets validated and then gets sent in. So out of that, there's still going to be somewhere they go, hey, this checked all the boxes. We don't know. We're passing it on because we don't want to get sued. It's not like they're all altruistic, they're they're managing risk and they send it in. That were good cases that they can't get. One of the largest sources of tips in the state of Washington to ICAC is Meta. We're talking well over a thousand tips a month. Out of that, under a hundred get success successfully worked. That's a reality.

Mario 50:46

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

You know, Steve, uh when that's a reality, you're gonna get a lot of people fishing in that pond. And those are the apps that you know of, right? There's a whole other group of apps out there that are not good uh even attempting to be good stewards of the data.

Parenting, Online Grooming, And Deterrence

Mario 51:00

Our guest tonight, Folk Talk Steve81. Uh, you can find him on his socials uh across all the platforms. What is um I know you're working on these. I have you been working on any like like old crime cases, uh things of that nature, anything that's like unsolved. I know there are other TV avenues. Are there any you know it's interesting you and I were talking, and I don't know if anything's been updated on the Gary Ridgway situation, and I know you and I touch about it every time we talk about it because you know I know he came through, but I think now that we I don't think that was I don't know. I I go back and forth that I felt like that was kind of like his last rendezvous to kind of get of like to kind of get off on the the idea of like these replaces. Was he really trying to like you know what I mean? As a as a serial killer, was was he trying to help King County and say, hey, I know where there's you know more bodies and things of that nature, or was he just I know I'm gonna die, I I I'm close to end of life. I'm gonna like I wanna go through back through that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

Yeah, it's hard to tell. I you know, I I wonder it could be a couple of things. One, he just wanted to go for one last uh road trip. Sure. Um, I do think he is in hospice care. I know that got noted noted uh over a month ago now, and people think hospice care it is end-of-life care. That doesn't mean it's uh d as imminent as people always think. Hospice can go on 12 plus months. But I think he's he's a much older man, he's realizing it's it's over. Uh, he may have wanted to orchestrate a road trip. He may have, may have, if I give him credit, may have even wanted to not to help, but just to be more notorious, find some more. But he's been gone over 20 years. Um, I think those of us who just drive around sometimes forget what 20 years ago looked like, let alone when you get out into the wilderness. I don't know if they went out there and he's really thought he would do it. He's like, Well, this is not what I remember, you know. And it's I I remembered I there's this tree by this thing, by this other thing, and none of those things seem to be here. But that thing over there sure looks a lot like it. Uh look there, you know.

Mario 53:10

Right. It it's it's it's quite interesting because even when you look through Kent Valley, uh where the Green River uh bridge is at down there off of, you know, if you're coming down uh Kent Des Moines and whatnot, um I mean I I grew up in the net you know, I grew up down there in in that area. It has changed, you know. They didn't they didn't have the big qual they didn't have the the the the c the you know the uh the golf course on the other side of the uh of of of the the place there and it and you know which is hugging the river and you had the the par three or whatever the executive nine and then they built the other course and what's interesting is that whole area is completely different, you know, and it yeah then they put the lower bridge in, then you know the smaller bridge for you know for pedestrians uh you know and golf carts and things of that nature. But you're right, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

That whole area does not look the same of where Steve that doesn't even when you go out, he liked to go out too out into the wilderness because in an hour's drive from Renton from the Kenworth factory, you could be pretty deep. And I I went when when he was out on that road trip, I got an idea of where they were gonna be. Yeah, and so I drove out there. These are places I hadn't been since I was a kid, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I know that area. Mario, I drove out there. I'd only been there a couple other times in my life, and I remember both vividly as like this road trip with dad type thing. I couldn't remember that. And I remember the drive, I remember the things, I remember stopping at a store, and I didn't see any of it. And it was kind of that was the reason it stuck out to me. I was like, how the heck is he gonna remember? I mean, granted, that's a serial killer, it's a different type of brain, it's a lot more methodical, but I just think when you've gone to prison for that long, um, and then you just go out there, we we don't realize all the change because we see it all day long until you go somewhere you haven't been, and then you realize the world has moved on.

Mario 55:01

And it's funny because if like I I always tell everyone like we're gonna take this show on the road. Can you imagine, Steve, if you and I decided to read retrace some of Gary's like and say, hey, look, this is what it looked like back in these days. This is what it was. This area was not like this. Right. You know, being a child growing up in the this area, in the in the region of where Gary was doing a lot of his his w his you know work or you know, finding the the escorts, these hookers, and you know, these prostitutes. And I I have to like I always say this I don't think a lot of those girls were prostitutes. I think they were a lot that I was like I was like, is no one gonna talk about that Gary was killing underage women? No one has talked about that. Some of his youngest, some of his victims were underage, which is terrible.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

A lot of a lot of what made him able to operate now in a way that would be much more difficult today, too, when we come back to cameras and such, is the amount of available data to track down somebody. Uh, Nancy Guthrie's case, I'm not an expert on.

VO 56:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

But I think a really under-reported portion of this is what happened in the last week. That ring camera was gone. They did not have the subscription to keep that data. That has been determined to be completely unusual. You could not get the footage, right? You couldn't get a look at what that person was. And they managed to put it together based on a whole bunch of fragmented bits in there that they were able to rebuild. And I think to have the camera be gone and still get it, even though they weren't even supposed to be keeping it. But apparently, when the FBI came in, they found a way to go and take stuff that had been erased and rebuilt it. Um, that is really pretty shocking stuff. That is what the ability is when you have those tools out there that even the stuff that has been deleted uh to and then scrambled to a level that we don't understand at home and we delete and do all that. Well, that's it. And they then got video of the suspect, pictures of the suspect. That lead was dead until the FBI came in with all the cool tools. So you look at that, um, and now you take somebody who's going all over populated areas.

unknown 57:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

And we're Nan Nancy Guthrie lives in an area farther out, and um relatively affluent. This is not a place where they're gonna have a lot of security cameras, and they still pulled it together. Imagine trying to do what Gary did on Aurora now. If you went out there to any scale, let alone just one or two, but to any scale, there's no way you're not gonna be on something. All it takes is an investigative body determined. Once there's determination, uh a lot of things can be solved with the data now.

Stings, Penalties, And Predators’ Tools

Mario 57:50

And when you know, Steve, I know that when we talk about Aurora, I think that if I go back to my memory, I think that there was more of a prostitution issue that was had bled down Pacific High Highway down into you know the CTAC airport area, um, which has been cleaned up uh over the years. And it's um I I mean I don't know, man. I I look back and even when I drive through the neighborhood now, and uh, you know, I'm like, oh, I reminisce of like, oh, this is where I used to go to school and things of that nature. It still looks the same to me, other than you put some new hot, you know, new restaurants in there, and you know, you got the light rail that's kind of buzzing through there now, and half of my neighborhood is gone because of the new 509. Um it is interesting because you have the Kenworth there, you have like he he just had an abundance of access to in to find individuals, and I I don't know, man. I like I know that he's locked up and he's gone forever. But man, for all the families that don't have stuff, like they don't have their person, their family member, the fact that he hasn't been able to, like I mean, that's what's crazy to me is that he he's like, I I don't remember. You know, like he he was at that point of his life where he wasn't able to I think he was killing so many people that he it was like almost like ah well, you know, it's like I get a new car every day, you know, every week, or you know, it's just it's just traumatic and an awful thing. I know, Steve, that we gotta get uh get you out of here.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

But uh as we wrap things up, another thing too I mentioned on that that I think is kind of changed dating apps. You know, I think that there's a different mentality, right? When you I think that people who generally go out looking for a prostitute experience, that's the experience they're looking for. But let's take CTAC. That is a traveling area. A lot of people come in, they're in a hotel, they then leave days later. You have people who are uh flight attendants, pilots as well, that they're just nomadic. They generally, from talking to them and even talking to people who live in that area, they get on the dating apps, they they treat it very differently. They they don't see themselves as I mean, the process they're not paying, but they're really just meeting for one thing. And it it just really shows you how much behavior can change when the tools change. And it tells you that really that CTAC should be where that is going on far more than Aurora. You have people passing through with no other purpose and to be there for two, three days uh for business, whatever it is, and or leave the same day, and yet where is it? Aurora. There's no airport up there, those are people living up there, and yet when you see how it's managed, it can still flourish. When really CTAC is where that type of stuff should flourish, but they don't let it happen down there in the same way. Well, it tells you it can be managed. Yeah, well, you still have it does happen, yes, but it doesn't happen the same way.

Mario 1:00:48

I mean, if you go three blocks up, if you hit three blocks east, you have you know, my old you know, there's an elementary school up there, my old middle school, then you know, uh the legendary Steve Poole and Gary Woodway high school, uh tiny high school, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

Um always gotta have a little yin-yang.

Mario 1:01:07

Yeah, you know, you always, yeah, for sure. Um, as we wrap things up here, uh Steve, uh, again, it's always awesome to hang out and chat with you. I know you got so much going on in these uh in these times. And um any other big projects we should be watching? Are we gonna see any more Kenneth Copeland type uh stories coming out?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

Uh probably not Kenneth Copeland. I know we're gonna be doing another season of Religion Business at some point that's still in the works and in the talks, but now you can get on Amazon and stream religion business. Please do. It's a seven-part series. Uh, I am also working on a pilot for a cold case show that I will also be not just involved in the production, but also be on camera. We're starting with the story of Lindsay Baum. Okay. Um, and then we may move to Tika Lewis and other big ones out here. Oh uh, the other thing, um, I'm gonna start doing more court stuff. So, court's always been a component of what I do, usually for first appearance. Yeah, I have been sitting in a wild double homicide trial uh from two bodies found in Maple Valley a couple years ago. It's got a white supremacist component, a very strong white supremacist component. Um, a lot of twists and turns, a lot of players. And I'm gonna start putting out daily rundowns on what that day at court was so people can start to understand what that's like. You'll get to see things the jury won't get to see, uh, and understand why the jury won't get to see it. I like to try and get into the cause and effect. And it's not like, oh, is this held back from the jury because judges don't care? No, here's the reason, here's why it matters, and um, and give the people an idea of just kind of what that process is at a more fast-paced thing than just sitting there and just watching court TV for eight hours a day watching it happen.

Mario 1:02:44

Well, Steve, we look forward to seeing some of the your you know your continued work and uh look forward to your success on what I think will be an uh a fantastic type show. Uh now will this be streamed? Are you gonna send it to a big type of uh will it you know, will it be on like an Amazon or something of that nature once you uh get these, you know, the techniques.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Yeah, the cold case, we're looking at Netflix right now. I think if if they decide to go ahead and fund the project off the original pilot, it'll be a Netflix concept. We have the option to go down YouTube, however, uh full disclosure, we are looking to try and find an organization that says, hey, we like this, we're willing to fund the operation so we don't have to lay everything out up front. Um, I think there'll be some if for those who may have seen Shot in the Dark, which is kind of a an LA stringer thing on Netflix, I'm looking at doing something like that on YouTube where that I wouldn't need funding, and so we might do that. But uh these other these cold case things, they're chunky. They take a lot of effort, a lot of resources, and a pocketbook. So uh Netflix will hopefully be that.

Mario 1:03:44

And and and uh as always, I know you you brought up the name. I mean, I mean she's been gone for a she's been missing for a long time, Tanika Lewis. So if you know, if if anybody has any information, and if it gets brought up, I always like to say, hey, call the Tacoma uh uh police department. Is that correct? They need to call those.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

Absolutely. Tacoma Police Department is still working hard on the Tika Lewis case. Her mom has stayed on top of this. You know, the the parents, uh and this is not a critique of any parent who's been through this, but I have learned the parents really set the trajectory of the media involvement of these stories. And Tika Lewis's mom has been amazing, Lindsay Baum's uh mom has been amazing, and they are the reason that these these cases, not because that these cases are sad or more worthy than anything else, but those moms out there working with media, participating, and really continuing to keep that out there is the reason those are still household names locally.

Cold Cases, Ridgway, And Forensics Advances

Mario 1:04:36

You know, and uh it makes me think of the the the young girl who was 16 years old that passed away on uh who was murdered uh and her body was found off of 509. I don't know. I mean I couldn't tell you anything other than they they I haven't heard any uh any updates or anything of the nature of if they even found the killer of who whatever that case was. Um and that was like Which one was that? She I I don't remember. She was 16, um twenty just out of twenty twenty, probably twenty twenty-one, something of that nature. Sixteen-year-old young girl uh was was murdered and then dropped right outside uh dispose right there on uh on 509 over probably heading south, uh probably past my you know, if you were to go into West Seattle off of Meyer, uh probably in that area over there where there's like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

Okay, I'll take a look at that now.

Mario 1:05:22

But it's been years, I don't know. I'll um I think there was a lot of components back in those days that were talking about uh maybe a new serial killer, but this was the 2020 where I think even King County sheriffs got involved and said, This is not a serial killer, this is a one-off, because it was that that young girl that was found, and then the body that was found in the at the DeWamish uh area same time area, same time frame, and that's when people were started boasting the rumors out. Oh, there's a there's a there's a serial killer uh running loose out in the in in the Seattle area. Women need to be careful if you're going to nightclubs. This guy is multi, you know, pretends like.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

I do remember this now. Yes, I remember this well.

Mario 1:06:02

So yeah, never heard any update. Not because of you, Steve, but I feel like, you know, just like you're saying, it it really is drummed up by you know the family and making sure that these cases don't go cold. You know, they they continue to be messed up. Uh again, it's always a pleasure, Steve, to have you come on and hang out with us. Uh, we look forward to your continued work and success. Uh, and we uh we we thank you for your time, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

Thank you.

Mario 1:06:29

Uh from the Pacific Northwest, I'd like to thank our guest Steve uh Hickey, Fotalk Steve81. If you'd like to follow him on his socials, uh for my staff, big staff of mine, Sophia Magania and myself, Mario Magania, be sure to look up at the sky because you never know what you might see. Good night. That's all right. I love how they do all this crap now. All right. Uh are you back in there? Yeah, you are, and I'm am I in there? There we go. All right, well, I appreciate your time. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Hold up, hold up, hold up. Let me get back over here. Can you hear me now? Yes. I gotcha. How about now? Yes, I got you. I can't hear you.

Mario 1:07:33

You cannot hear me. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. Let me see here. Audio has done.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

I'll call you real quick.

Mario 1:07:42

Okay. Yo. Good stuff, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

Yo, hey. Uh, that one on 509. That was that was not real.

Mario 1:07:59

That was not?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

No, that was hoax. I didn't want to say it there, but uh, that's why I was like, oh, yep, I know the one you're talking about. No, it was fake. She didn't exist. It was all is Seattle looks like shit, and Seattle looks submissions push that out. Oh shit. Uh trying to, yeah.

Mario 1:08:15

No shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

Yeah, that was I don't know that they did it with intent, but I reached out to him and I was like, no, it doesn't exist. I reached out to them because it was one of those I was like, you can't fucking process a body without me and 30 other people knowing out here. Right. And sure enough, uh, it kind of came out, it was not real. And so the sheriff's department did come out and say, there's no serial killer, there's not even a killer on this one. Okay.

Mario 1:08:38

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

I didn't want to do it there because I didn't think it really mattered.

Mario 1:08:43

Well, yeah. I appreciate it, man. I think this is good shit. I'm gonna try and turn this around uh to get it out tonight to uh place on the uh radio. So I'll send you a link when it's uh when it's up and going.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:56

Please do, and I'm gonna head north. It sounds like they didn't kill him. He is well known, and he was actively sexually assaulting a woman in North Seattle, so it might actually tie into uh prostitution up there, but I'll know more here in a bit. I'm gonna head that way. All right, man. We'll talk to you. Have a good one. Thanks, man.

VO 1:09:11

See you later.