Christopher Curtis
Appearances
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Now, in Vegas, I can tell you that without telling you that on both hands, I've run into easily five to ten people. be a list people involved in very, very compromising situations. And I know that happens in LA, but the Vegas stuff is really superseding. It's almost always some kind of sex prostitute drug type thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I, and you know, I was like 21, 22 years old and I was interacting with people who I had no idea that I would be interacting with them on that type of level.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, not at all. I'm good. I mean, that's kind of why I came, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That's one of the things. You don't really walk as much in Vegas. You know, everyone really drives a car. And I could talk about that a little bit later, because I think foot patrol is kind of important. Right. But I remember one time going to – there was this movie theater called the Flick Movie Theater. It was right on Fremont Street.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I remember going in and going to a hotel and getting – they would comp us our dinner. So we'd get a comp and go eat dinner at one of the hotels. I remember meeting the security guard. He gave me a comp. I went, ate dinner. And then I got out – you're talking about foot patrol. I got out to walk my food off about an hour or so later.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I go in the Flick Motel, and it was one of those kind of triple X kind of movie theater. And the same security guard that gave me the comp was getting a blowjob from a young guy in one of the back seats in his uniform. Wow. Comp and dinner, huh?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, no. So I hated having to do that because I was a rookie at the time. And like you walk in there and your boots are like sticky because, you know, all the kind of disgusting.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He, um, he was revitalizing downtown Las Vegas and he was investing 350 million into it. And he heard about me doing some innovative things down there. And, uh, he, through a friend, he asked to meet me at a bar. And so we meet at this bar and I'm like, this Tony Shay, like this. And he says, um, he told me about the project. And he's like, would you like to come work for me?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And were there live sex shows in there? No, there weren't. There was a movie theater, but they would want the rookies to walk through it so that stuff like that wouldn't happen. But what was weird was that this guy felt he was comfortable enough to go in in his uniform and get a blowjob. You know, in a movie theater. Yeah. Like not even take his uniform off and go inside.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And that was like that Wild West mentality. Vegas, on that same street, maybe a couple of weeks later, and this would happen frequently, I got a call of a person not answering their door at their hotel room. Go up to the hotel room, security with the passkey. Wow, it's scary.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
They open the door. This dude was butt naked on the bed. Mm-hmm. Completely bloated. We say 419, which is the code for a dead body. Completely dead. He might have started turning purple if I recall, but he was definitely dead. And he had a picture of his family on the nightstand. So fast forward to the end of what happened was this guy came to Vegas on a conference or something like that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He has a beautiful family, picks up a hooker, tries to have sex with her. Heart pops and he dies. She leaves him and she leaves with all of his stuff. And then that's the legacy that he leaves for his family. And it was almost like it was movie-like because on the nightstand, the guy carried a picture of his family and put it on the nightstand.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And then I can see his dead fat body with little pee-pee sticking out. And his kids with his wife's picture is right there. Wow. And you think about that kind of stuff. Like, see, when we talk about this police thing, I think that death is the recurring theme and it gets scary.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Like you, cause you see so much, like I would look at a dead body and I'd be like, did that guy realize that that was the last time he was going to put on those underwear? Right. That's the last time that he realized that he was going to do that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
One time I was on a call where a guy hung himself and I was second to arrive and there was another cop in there and the guy was there. He had cut him down but left the ligature around his neck because he didn't want to make sure that it was
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
actually a suicide and the guy was just dead and the cop was there playing with the guys because a lot of people in Vegas have those video poker little handheld video poker things I mean because this was a repeat they don't do it on their phone and the cop was just sitting there he was like just talking to me like yeah and the guy was dead I'm talking about stuff from the beginning of my career more so and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Because I think that that really kind of formulated how my mind looked at death. And, you know, it's evolved some, but those things stand on my mind. And I was like, how's this cop sitting here playing this video game? And I was like, that's why he's playing the video game. Right. That's why he's playing the video game because he's got to sit up here with this guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You know, that same time period in my career, it also taught me a lot about what we do with our loved ones at the last moment. There was a recall on domestics. You get a lot of recalls. There was this lady.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
A lot of times you end up having to go back to the same address multiple times.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I remember it was really, really pretty kind of, I'm guessing it because I was maybe in my early 20s. I'm going to guess this lady was about 30 something, really, really pretty light skinned black lady. And she had some kids and she got she had recently been divorced. And so she got the two kids. She was a son and a daughter. Daughter was about 14 and the son was about maybe nine.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I was like, I'm not old enough to retire. And I don't have, you know, the time. And he said, uh, Can you buy it? How much does it cost? And I said, I have to get back to you. But I knew it was a significant six-figure number. And I got back to him with the number, and he wrote the check. And so at like 21 years on April Fool's Day of 2013, I retire. So he paid your— He bought it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'm just guessing these ages. And I remember these kids would like be so mean to their mom because the divorce caused them to pick sides because the mom ended up with custody of the kids. And the dad was a pretty violent guy and she would always call if he was coming through. And I remember going and the kids were just so mean to their mom.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
After maybe a third recall, there was a call to the residence. I was just about to get off on graveyard of gunfire. And I showed up and the mom was laying on the sidewalk, shot in the face by the dad. And the kids were screaming, my mom, what am I going to do without my mom? I mean, just screaming. You can feel that go through your whole body. But you have to remain professional.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And in my mind, I'm saying, but you never said that to her when she was alive. Why didn't you know? Why didn't you? I didn't say that to them because these kids are going through trauma. Why didn't you say that to them, to her when she was alive? So, you know, when I when I talk to people about policing, you know, it's nice to tell stories. But is there a lesson that I can learn from this?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
If someone watches, that's why I really like you, man, because people relate to you, dude. And like there's some kid or someone watching this that's like maybe going through something. And if they can take that away that, you know what, I'm going to say I love you or I'm going to hold back. yelling and being rude to you just because I'm having a bad day, then this, you know, to me is a win.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I agree 100%. And as we get older, I think that we learn how to do it better. But there's so many young people suffering. And I hate to use the term bullying because it sounds kind of corny. But I don't like bullying in any way, shape, or form. There's someone going through something so difficult, we have no idea how.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You know that saying that says, be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a very hard battle. I don't go to Vegas as much. I go to Vegas a couple of times out of the year for just different things. because obviously I still have some roots there, but even being a New Yorker, I spent so many years there. The last time I went to Vegas, or maybe it was the last time, my daughter picked me up, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So if you want to collect a retirement, you have to do at least a certain amount of time. You get vested in the state system. Got it. So to make it worthwhile, to make it a significant amount of money, you want to do at least 25 years. I mean, 20 years, you could do it. But at 25 years and 30 years, the money's pretty nice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
My oldest daughter picked me up. She's amazing. All my kids are amazing, but my oldest daughter picked me up, she says, we coming back from the airport and we drive by this apartment community. And without even thinking- By an apartment community? Yeah, by apartment community. And without even thinking, I was like, oh, because when you're a cop, you're like, okay, that happened there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That happened there. That's all you think about. And I remember I said, I said, I'm going to tell, I told her the story that there was this pizza delivery guy. His girlfriend went to pick him up from work and she rode on him on his last delivery ride. And these guys come out from the bushes and rob and shoot and kill him. I was the first to arrive.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I get there and this girl grabs my arm and she's saying, wake him up. Wake him up. And you don't, this is, in the Bible, there's a story where this woman walks by, and I'm not saying that I'm Jesus by any shape, but when the woman touched Jesus and he said he felt, you know, he instantly turned and knew that he was touched. There's power that goes through people when they're going through things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And like, that's why I feel like being a cop for that long, I don't know that the human psyche is meant to be able to deal with going through that. It's like, you go to work, you're like, okay, give me a conflict. Okay, I'm done with that one. Give me another conflict. Right. All right, I'm ready. Give me another conflict. I go to lunch. Then I go home and got to deal with my own conflict.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so to get to 25, at the time he wanted me to retire, he needed to buy it and it was six figures and he wrote the check. Wow. And so within like a couple of days you were done? No, I kind of was strategic about it and I planned it out and I wanted to see exactly what his process was. And he was a very, very smart guy and a very forward thinking guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It really is. You know, there's a story that that story you just told me. reminded me of, and again, it's a nexus too about how we treat humans. What's a nexus mean? Nexus is like a connection too. So when one thing connects to another thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So the story that you told me reminded me of the story where I negotiated this guy. So I get a call. I was a sergeant actually at the time. So I ended up negotiating because I was part of this crisis intervention team.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I go from Southeast Area Command all the way to downtown. It was Valentine's Day, February 14th. A lot of people end up attempting or committing, we'll say 405. Our term for that, unliving themselves, is 405. They 405 on these holidays or at cemeteries sometimes. But this guy's on Fremont Street, about 14th and Fremont, walking up and down. And he's got...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So we kind of planned behind the scenes how to work it out. And so I had enough time to set everything up. And then April Fool's Day, I retired. Wow. And he paid off. How many years did he pay off? So it turned out to be like maybe like three and almost four years, basically four years. Yeah. And at that point, you started working for him? At that point, I started working for him. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
gun in his hand and so they pull me into the scene they put me in a car and I'm like the guy I mean the guy was like about maybe about 12 or 13 feet that way when we first drove I'm like dang on bro you're gonna drive me so close but they end up pulling behind this because it was really kind of a haphazard thing because the patrol officers pulled up on him he had no one call I think the guy just the patrol officer pulls up something the perimeter was set up kind of weird so they we pull up and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I, you know, I get to a safe distance behind. And so I start on the PA talking to the guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. So I'm talking to the guy. You're the responsible one. I'm the responsible, right? Okay. And so I'm saying to him, and then I look at the guy, he looks kind of Latino. So then I start saying, I said, maybe I'll say it in Spanish. So then in Spanish, I start giving, you know, saying to him, listen, you know, giving him the whole thing, right? And he keeps starting to raise the fire.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I keep going like this because all, you know, these got, you know, officers with their rifles on him and offers. And I'm like, this guy's going to get it. And I can see him talking to him. And then one time he lifts. They light him up. So we all just run across the street. And these weird things happen when you're in a very critical situation like that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I remember one of the first things I noticed was that his pinky was shot off when I first got up to him. So we get the scene, calm down. And then I see also in his boot, he had a Derringer, a little small .22 Derringer. The gun that he had was not real. It was a replica firearm, if I recall. It was a pellet, something like that. This is what's called suicide by cop.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I don't know if you're familiar with that term. Now I am. Now I totally understand it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yes. Well, some people, for religious reasons, they feel like if they kill themselves, that's the last act that they committed. Or some people just don't have, I guess, I don't want to say courage. It's ballsy to unalive yourself. Yes, it is. So 405 is a serious thing. So those are some replica firearms. It was legit. I shot a guy with one of those, by the way.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. It's just, it's a personal preference. You know, I have a few different guns. My favorite gun is my AR pistol though. You know, but I mean, I'm not a big gun person, but I strongly believe in protecting mine.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yes. But you know, let me just tell you one other part of that story. I'm going to tell you, forgive me. So what happened was we had to go to coroner inquest for that and, And we all go and we tell... You had to go to what? It's called a coroner's inquest where everyone gives testimony. Okay. And is that the same day? No, no, no.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's sometime after because homicide has to collect their information and everything. And mind you, you know, this is some weeks later. So this lady, after all the officers and everyone testify, this lady walks in. No one knows who she is. And she's in like this kind of like...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
plain Jane kind of outfit and she walks up to the front and it's almost like a movie scene because it's so quiet because I didn't know how she was and she gets up they swear in or whatever and she says I just want you to know that while you guys were on the police side this person was my brother I'm not here to try to defend his behavior I just came so officially you know that someone loved him and then she got up and she left
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I had my full police retirement and then I had a significant salary from him. So that was nice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so to me, it's like, you never know what someone's going through in life when you go in, you know, with the whole road rage thing or whatever, you know, like maybe that person, maybe let me cut them a little bit of slack, you know, let me cut them a little bit. And I mean, I'm raising my hand. I'm very, very guilty.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I was still living in Vegas. I had to because I had to be kind of working in that project downtown. Can I give you something? Actually, I brought something for you. Yeah, sure.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You're kind of. No, so negotiation happens in a lot of different ways. That's not, that's atypical way. Because from the negotiation team, they set up a command center, the whole nine yards. You're very far back. I mean, sometimes you don't get on the phone for maybe an hour. You could be two hours later.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That situation was a very critical situation where they needed someone who had training on the scene. So what's kind of fun that I've been able to deal with those kinds. And also the kind where you're in the tactical operations center. So, you know, another one of those kind of dynamic situations was a guy who was inside, had a gun. His neighbor called and I was negotiating.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And it's called a face to face, but it's really we weren't really face to face because we don't do face to face. It's like it's incredibly dangerous. But I was actually in patrol at the time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I was the first to arrive and I ended up getting a rapport with this guy and I talked to him and talked to him and we, I developed, you know, I want to say liking the guy, you know, and understanding what he was going through.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You know, I'm a fan, man. I really like what you do, and I think you're awesome, and I figured I could give you something, a Vegas souvenir. So open that up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He's going through and they, you know, it's usually like three things, you know, it's a health issue, loneliness, you know, family loss and a financial issue or a medical issue. It's any one of the various things. And he was going through like maybe all of those things. And I remember talking to him and I'm like, and he says, you know what?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
We got to a point where he said, you know, I'm going to come out, but I want to come out and I want to talk to you. Will you welcome me to the ambulance? Because I told him he was going to go to the ambulance and get transported. And I did that. And I stayed with him at the ambulance. The ambulance people come out to me and they say, hey, officer, you might want to come see this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I go inside and inside of his drawer, stacks of kiddie porn. Stacks of it. Now, mind you, I would talk this guy out of 405ing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's like you have this really kind of duality.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's a very difficult, difficult situation to be in. And, you know, when you talk to a person for extended periods of time, it's called Stockholm. Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The pedophilia, you'd see like familial stuff like that. Or you would see like that guy that had the pictures inside the room. It wasn't a person running, you know, females. One time I was... I was actually with the Cops TV show for this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
In this episode, they couldn't air because we drove into the desert because a vagrant had found a campsite and there was a person who was living there and this guy, and I'm going to assume it was a guy because we never caught him, but all of these pornographic magazines This is scary, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He cut little kids' faces out of other regular magazines and pasted the little kids' faces on all these explicit magazines. So this is the type of person you think would be, like, a serial, like, kidnapper, like, whatever. And the cops didn't end up airing it, and I'm not sure why, because it was incredibly graphic and creatively weird and disgusting at the same time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And we never, ever caught the guy. No. Never caught him. What was the campsite like? It was just a disgusting campsite in the desert area because Vegas has a lot of desert areas. So especially if you go like to the northwest area and vagrants kind of hang out there, kind of a little near Nellis Air Force Base.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's like somebody just... Exactly like that. You know, old cans, beer bottles, soda bottles. There was like a sleeping bag and stuff like that. That's so bizarre. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, it is. And you know, that's one of the things that I saw. Yeah. So that the one that was molested ends up molesting.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, I did. Yeah, I wanted you to have a badge, man. And so then you can just put it on this little thing. Oh, thanks, bro. And then you can just put it in one of your places, man. You do a lot of really cool stuff, man. When I came into town, man, and the people I talked to, you know, small group of people, everyone really thinks very, very highly of you, man. I watched your stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The prostitution on Vegas is just off the meter. Is it? A lot of people think that it's legal in Vegas. It's not legal in Vegas. It's legal a little bit north in Nye County. You can go to the, there's a chicken ranch and there's other places that people can go. But in Vegas, it's illegal. It's a misdemeanor, but it's still illegal. But inside the clubs, inside the...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I mean, there's tons of girls who are working and most of them, not most of them, a lot of them work for pimps.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
There's a thing, well, pimps a lot of times, from a pimp perspective, they have a stable of women and they'll go from place to place to place. Like they'll go to Miami and bring their girls to Miami to work. They'll bring their girls to New York or Vegas or whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And these girls are called, I don't like the terminology, but they're called carpet holes or holes that actually work inside of casinos. And they'll walk inside the casino on the carpet and they'll go make their money, come back and give it to the pimp. Then you have the lower level prostitutes, which are the ones that work the tracks. And a track is a place where it's known for prostitution.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And Vegas and every other major city has tracks and lower level pimps will drop their girls off on the tracks and then they'll walk the track and make their money. Then you have the ones that are the call girls who work out of the books and they're the most high level females that a person can interact with.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'm retired, so now it may have changed, but I can tell you that in the time when I was working, their cars stood out. It wasn't like the 1970s pimp mobile type vehicles. Right. But you would see the nicer, you know, escalades or whatever types of vehicles.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But you could we would know because, I mean, if you're on a Boulder Highway, which is a really, really kind of seedy area, especially where the track is by five points. Boulder Highway, it's called. It's called Boulder Highway five points. Yeah, because it's five points of the city intersect at that location. And that's a track. It's still a track. OK, let's see that Boulder Highway five points.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, because sometimes if I go, I'll drive just to see what places are still popping. Yeah, sure, brother.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But even in rap culture, you can hear people talk about pimp culture. Oh yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
In my career, I didn't see that. But in New York, I know that, you know, the Russians have a lock on a lot of different vices in New York. That didn't really translate into Vegas as much. At a certain point, do you let the...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
primary responsibility for a patrol officer is to respond to calls for service. So I'm going to speak to when I was a patrol officer. And I'm talking about prostitution. Right, for prostitution. So, I mean, you see two or three prostitutes walking up and down the street. I mean, you can only stop one. But most of the time, they would... If they sort of patrol car, they would just keep walking.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And if I hung out in the area long enough, they would realize that no trick is going to stop and pick them up. So you could affect it like that. But then you get a call for service and then you got to leave and then they're going to be back doing exactly what they want to do. Was it a crime that I was really super concerned about? No, it wasn't.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But it looks bad when I'm part of the responsible party of keeping that area safe. And you know, if you have a prostitution situation going on, either something else is going to occur, you know, connected to that. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
get beat up or she's gonna steal his money a lot of times they would do that to guys if they felt like they could take their money because they weren't the guy wouldn't report it to the police that would happen for low level for people who wanted to buy drugs too you would get these kids from the Midwest to come there oh they're in Vegas okay we go down on Fremont let's go buy some whatever they want to buy and I'm gonna fill in the blank of whatever drug it could be
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And they would just they would just rob them. They would give them whatever. And they say, go call the police. And then what are they going to do? They're not going to call the police. And then you got all of this crap going on. And it looks bad. It's like, why? Why are tax dollars paying for the police if we're not going to keep the area clear?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I think to answer your question, what I would do mostly is I would leave the prostitutes alone with the exception of interacting with them to say, hey, it's time to clear out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Right. So the casino security are pretty high level. They're pretty well trained. They handle what they can, but they can't arrest anyone. So if it's a felony... We have to come and take care of it for most misdemeanors. A lot of times they would give a personal warning. I got called to casinos a lot of times for a lot of different things. I mean, cause you know, people get drunk high.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Um, you know, I told you if we have dead bodies, obviously the police have to respond to dead bodies. Um, that's great. Oh yeah. But in a lot of times people die in, in, in, in these, uh, casinos. What did they die? Overdoses probably a lot of times it's overdoses.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Um, so let me speak to the things I can specifically remember. So sometimes it's been just over partying, overexertion of their heart. And it could be a combination of using drugs, trying to have some sex that they weren't trying, weren't capable of doing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But a lot of times it's an overexertion and trying to put too much in a weekend and thinking that Vegas is going to be the panacea to whatever they had going on in their life back in Minnesota. And it wasn't. Yeah. Was there ever like a murder in a casino? No. A murder in a casino. No, I've never ever responded to a murder in a casino. I've responded to a lot of different murders.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But in the Patroka's Pasadena, a lot of times those murders were either a robbery. The really sad ones were obviously the domestic violence ones. But the casinos, they did a pretty decent job of... the ones that casinos that I dealt with of kind of monitoring their clientele. They've done the Vegas because you don't, you get issues like that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And then people are not going to come back to your casino. Vegas is run by money. And most of the directors of these casinos are people who were prior or cops before.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Does that happen or no? Yeah, there were some cops that have gotten in trouble for getting some of the prostitution stuff on the side. And that's another thing is that Do you ever heard the term badge bunnies? So it's not just prostitutes. It's just a lot of times women in general would offer police. Sex or sexual activities.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
One of my TAC officers, the guys who teach you when you're in academy said, this badge will get you a whole bunch of coochie, but one coochie will take that badge away. Damn. And it's true.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I had a cop on time. This dude was super squared away. I mean, tall, good looking. I mean, straight out of central casting. And I'm definitely not going to say his name. I had a ton of respect for this guy. For sure. In fact, I think he was good enough to almost play professional baseball, if I recall.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I was his boss at the time, and he goes on a call, and this girl, he was supposed to take, I think, a burglary report, if I recall. And he ends up hooking up with the girl and realizes that he screwed up. And so, and the girls, I guess, having feelings for him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so like how he ends up going and putting like a hoodie on and going and trying to buy the morning after pill at a convenience store or whatever, or CVS, wherever you can buy the morning after pill. And he had called me and said, Hey, I'm not feeling well. Can I get off early? And I just, this guy was so sharp. I was like, yeah, go ahead. Go, go home.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
and it so he and he tells the girl he wants her to take the morning after pill and then she ends up calling the police calling the police and then it turns and he lost his job over it and then there's a video of him this is like a married guy with a hoodie on going in buying a morning after pill um and it's just it was that that temptation story involving me I went on a call it was a loud music call and it was all these girls that came in drunk from a from a party and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That kind of stuff happens. And what do you do? I'm just kidding. Can you look or not? Of course. I mean, she was standing right there. I just said, no, we're going to leave. You've got to be professional, and you've got to go. But you're going to get that kind of stuff all the time. I mean, you write people tickets. They track you down, and you want to meet up or connect or whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
There are people who just have a thing for police.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, because you get off shift. I mean, you get off shift and you can, you know, meet the person after. You don't have to try to do it on duty.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It depends on what kind of situation it is. There were guys. Now, there are cops who have banged the white. This story's happened more than once where a cop arrests a guy, the husband, for domestic violence and hooks up with the wife. No. That's happened more than once. What's that called? Is there a felony? I mean, a bad business.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, it's, it's bad. It's, it's a very, very bad thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
New Year's Eve. Really? Yeah. And I didn't like working easy because so many people shoot guns in the air and all kinds of stuff like that. And I remember I went on a call one time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Well, the story that I went to is a lady, um, What goes up must come down. Someone shot a gun up and a bullet came down and was right in her boob. Yeah. So that's a cautionary tale to people who go out and shoot on Valentine's Day. Of course, we didn't catch the guy, but yeah. So I didn't—and New Year's Eve is just people getting wild and drunk and fighting.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The one time a person spit in my face was on New Year's Eve. A woman. What do you do then? Yeah. It was tough. I was about to retire, man. And this girl was just incredibly drunk. You know, she couldn't go into the casino. We end up getting her into custody. My officers got her in custody. And I'm trying to calm her down face to face. And she just spit right in my face, man. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'm telling you, it took everything. You know, I saw my whole career passing through, you know, and she ended up getting booked on that because, you know, that's a crime, obviously. And we went to court and she was dressed up completely nice and they offered her a deal if I would agree to her getting the deal. And I gave her the deal, man. Wow. Gave it a deal.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
People get drunk and do stupid things, man. It sucked. Not only does the smell and all that other stuff suck, but what sucks is being humiliated on Fremont Street on New Year's Eve in front of thousands of people and seeing people laughing at you for being spit upon. It sucked, man. It really did. But, but you gotta, you know, to me, you gotta learn to forgive, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But I don't think that all people are good. I think that we are human that are capable of doing things that we don't even know that we're capable of doing. I have this thought that if placed in the right or wrong circumstance, a person that you would think would not do a certain thing would do that certain thing. That's the thing about being human.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That's the beauty of free will to some degree, in my opinion, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Can you find it really quick? Oh, and they were asking to shock. Yeah, I think I know which case you're talking about.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
What about the McDonald's one? Are you familiar with the McDonald's case, the police case where the guy – Craziest thing I've ever heard.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Is it even crazier? This became a form of porn that became super popular. Really? Yes. Where they were having, it would look, they were just filming it exactly like that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You would just steal along with a badge.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And one of them was a husband and wife. The manager, the male manager and the female was a husband, was a wife.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Can you imagine that? And it started, I couldn't believe it was true. I could not believe it was true. And it started when you were saying about the authority, right? Like just authoritative voice or thinking that it's a police officer, that these people will be willing to do that. It's unbelievable to me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Tony Hsieh. Tony Hsieh. So for Tony, he was revitalizing downtown and he wanted to create like an ambassador. You know, those ambassadors that kind of give out directions or eyes for the police. And he wanted someone that knew the area. So I like hired like 60 people and they just walked around the area because it was pretty high crime rate back then.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
This one is tough, man. So the call comes out, and this was a swing shift call. So it's usually right before, you know, after 3 p.m. Swing shift's 3 p.m. until about 1 a.m. So the night hours about 9 to 11 are the hours that things really pop off. Mm-hmm. So this call comes out where these guys are screaming on the phone. My brother's been shot. My brother's been shot. My brother's been shot.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It happened at the Circle K. So I drive up to the address of where it is. And these two guys are on the sidewalk just wailing, like freaked. I know that's true. That's why it's hard for me to watch TV shows. But these guys are truly in trauma. And they're wailing. And I could see the car where they're talking about. They're like, my brother, my brother, my brother.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I go to the car and I get to the window and I see this, like, this guy had a lot of hair. It was all matted and mush. And you can tell that he wasn't moving. And I open and his face was just because he had been shot in the head. His face was just mush. And it was just all this nasty purple blood and everything.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I close the door and I go and I talk to the brothers and they tell me that they were driving by the Circle K and that someone shot at them. And I was like, this didn't make a lot of sense to me that, you know, the entry wound was in the back of the head and there's no entry in the window of the car.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
In fact, what's interesting is I had worked a double homicide job. on Fremont like maybe about six months before he approached me it was pretty bad down there at one point for a long time when I first hired on in 92 it was like if you wanted a cop to learn how to be a really good street cop you would want to work downtown on Fremont so basically to answer your question it was to um
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
What turns out is it was three brothers in the car and the brother in the backseat was playing with the gun and he put it to his brother's head joking around and he pulled the trigger and shot and killed his brother. And so in that short period of time, the two alive brothers have to figure out a story because this happened very, very quickly.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I remember when I, because the brothers ended up confessing to this, is the trauma of killing your brother is, and then having to make up a story about it and having to deal with that grief. One of the most wild, crazy things, because you do have, it was an accident, but it's negligence.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It almost sounds Shakespearean or something. It is. And you know, that's, you know, playing with guns is another thing because one of the first calls I ever had to translate on was because we had, we have AAA. Well, I don't say we, cause I don't live there anymore, but in Vegas they have AAA baseball and they have this AAA team. This guy had Tommy John surgery and a Dominican guy had Tommy John.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so he was partying with his friends and they brought some girls over and And he was playing with a gun and shot this young girl in the head. She was probably like 19 years old, killed her. And I walk into the, I walk into the, I walk upstairs, I walk into the apartment and the girl, her eyes were open and she was just to the side like this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And the guy is just like, he's completely freaked out. And he's thinking about his career, right? And so he didn't speak English. So I'm, you know, translating to him in Spanish. And I'm like, the stupidity again of playing with a freaking gun You just life is done. You know, I mean, you're done. Your career is what you're thinking about right now. How do you live with that?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Don't even think about the legal stuff that you have to go through. Living with the fact that you took this like 18 or 19 year old girl's life because you wanted to show off and play with a gun. So there's another lesson. It's like, do not play with frigging guns. And they're not toys. They're really not toys. And so many people do. So many people do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Responsible gun ownership is good. But, you know, when it comes to playing with guns or showing off with guns, I mean, it's just one of the stupidest things that you can possibly do. Have you ever been involved in a shooting? Yes, I have. In fact, I was mentioning earlier, I was involved in two. And I was a sergeant on nine. You were a sergeant on nine shootings? On nine different shootings, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It can mean any of those, but the ones I was involved in, and the one that I specifically would reference is this interesting story. It was a cop buddy of mine. This mom was taking her kids out and having one of the kids make a commotion and then the rest of the kids would steal stuff and run out. So my buddy had a warrant for... At a grocery store? More like those Target-type places. Got it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
My buddy had a warrant for one of the people in the family, and he asked me to go with him to serve it, and it was an arrest warrant. So we get to the apartment community, and he thinks he sees one of the guys involved in this thing. And the guy I remember, he had on these red cargo shorts, a white T-shirt, wife beater, and... He goes, that's the guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So there's a thing that we do is we call contact cover where one officer does all the talking and the other one covers to make sure that the person is not doing anything. Oh, OK.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
have these ambassador people who wore like, you know, shirts, you know, and very welcoming to people who were looking for directions because there was an infrastructure of people that were working and living down there. And he was trying to build that because he had residential businesses and all kinds of stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yep. It's called contact cover. And so I was the cover officer. And as I'm looking at the guy, I see in his cargo pocket the outline of a gun. And so our code for gun is 413. So I made the fourth, I give 413 to him. So my guy sees it and he's like, oh, shoot. So the guy was being a no, so the reason, yes, people, no people, maybe people.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And the guy was being a maybe, maybe person, like maybe I'll comply and that maybe people, we want to get them in custody. So I made the choice that I knew I could tell it was a gun. So I made the choice that I went and I grabbed it. And this guy yanked away from me. And he got away. And so the foot pursuit starts. And he reaches into his cargo pocket. And I'm running after him, gun drawn.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And this was around 435 o'clock in Vegas. So it's still very light outside. Mm-hmm. And I'm running after him. And he keeps turning around and looking at me. And I keep saying, if you pull that gun out of your pocket, I'm screaming, if you pull that gun out of your pocket. And then he pulled the gun and I lit him up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I remember after I shot that, you know, he does the somersaults and everyone in this place is screaming. At the Target? At the apartment complex? At the apartment complex. Everyone's screaming. And they were, this place was kind of anti-police. They're like, oh, he shot that guy. He shot that guy. And the guy's mom came out. She was one of the first people to come out. He lived.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It turned out that it was a replica gun. It wasn't even a real gun. Replica. It was a replica that looked like a firearm. It was not even a real weapon. It was not a fireable weapon. It was a replica.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But actually, it's a blessing. It makes sense. It makes sense.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Because a lot of those guys, they'll rob people with them. Oh, I see. Or someone, you know, and he's a gang member. And so a lot of times they'll flash those. Or if they have the inability to get something, that's better than nothing. Um, but it was just incredibly, and it became a race thing, which was really weird because I'm not white.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And in not having the police, he wanted to have a civilian group of people that could interact with people and make them feel safe.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Um, you know, but the media portrays things a certain way and it flips.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, no. We shoot to incapacitate. You're taught to shoot center mass. But again, do you train running at full speed through an apartment? There's a whole bunch of different dynamics that come into play.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So you're black and white. Well, actually, both of my parents are kind of mixed. So I guess I'm, but I'm considering myself black.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But I speak Spanish because I learned to speak Spanish as an adult. Yeah. That was an intent of mine. I respect cultures. I think that, and I lived in another country that spoke Spanish. So I felt that if you go into another country and learn their language.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's really interesting because, you know, a lot of people being a white cop is really, really difficult. A white male cop, because so often the default is that you did it because I'm this race and you're white. And I was around cops for 20 plus years and,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I can only think of one instance, one instance where there was an overtly racial thing that occurred and it was a comment that was made in a briefing room. But as far as the treating of a person because they were a certain race, I've never seen that. And I'm hypersensitive to that kind of stuff. Like I study that. In fact, I taught it for a while. What is that called?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So some people call it diversity. I call – my class was called human and I called it the sole search warrant. And I think that we all have biases. All of us have biases. Oh, for sure. And I think that you as a comedian know that part of those biases is what makes a lot of comedy funny.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And most black comedians, the first thing that they talk about is how black people are a certain way and white people are a certain way. I mean – that's just kind of how we are, but we get along and it works. But in policing to default that because one person is one color and another person is another color is the wrong way to look at it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I'm not very comfortable speaking about specifically how he died. I know there was an incident where there was a fire and he was inside the fire. And I believe it was related to something about being inside the building with the fire. Because I wasn't with the company when that happened. That was sometime after the company.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I mean, this whole thing that happened with George Floyd, I mean, we're talking billions of dollars and people who were, the cities were destroyed and all that stuff. I have yet to see a piece of evidence that Derek Chauvin did that because George Floyd is black. I haven't seen that. Now, can I speak to the tactics? I can, of course, speak to the tactics. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
What did Chauvin say? I never looked at that. So I can tell you that—so here are the factors, and this is a big can of worms for us to open up, but I'll speak to some specifics. Because, you know, now there's a push that he should be released, right? I've seen that recently.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I'll tell you my thoughts on it. Do you want to talk about that? For sure. And you're black and white. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. So I'll tell you, here's my take on it. Because I have cops who say, oh, yeah, he was wrongly convicted. He was wrongly convicted. I say, OK, let's just set that aside for a second. You roll up on that scene and Chauvin has his knee on Floyd's neck.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Tell me what you're going to do at that point. And he's not moving. What are you going to do? And every one of them says, of course, I'm going to tell him to get off. So I said, then we need to start from that point about the sanctity of a person's life. Let's forget about the fact that George Floyd was likely on a very high levels of fentanyl, which was proven and all that other stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Why can't policing be human? You know what I'm saying? I'll give you an example, Theo. Check this out. Judge me on this really quickly. This is a typical car stop. I pull you over, Sergeant Curtis, Vaughn Police Department. Reason I pulled you over is because you were speeding license registration and proof of insurance, please. Grade me on that. A, B, C, D? I would say B. Okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You give me a B on that. A to B. A to B. A to B. Okay. So now you go to a restaurant. I come up to your table. I'm like, hello, Mr. Vaughn. My name's Christopher. I'd like to tell you about our specials today. We got a chicken. We have a fish. And we have a new tiramisu. Grade me on that as your server. A to B. So I'll tell you. I would not give that server an A to B.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And, you know, it got to a point where after I retired and I had throughout the years of dealing with so much death and all the craziness on the police department, I just tuned everything out. I really didn't engage with people if it wasn't a positive experience. And then it became a point where I was just like a solitary person.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And most servers are going to come to you and be a lot more congenial than I was to you. Yeah, probably. A little more energetic. A little more energetic, a little more congenial. Shouldn't policing be even better? How about this? How you doing, sir? Sergeant Curtis, Vaughn Police Department.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I know this is probably not what you want to be doing right now, but I just want to explain something to you. We had a little kid almost get hit the other day and we're pulling people over just to warn them to slow down a bit. If you give me a license, registration, proof of insurance, I'll try to get you out here as quickly as possible.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'm sure that you probably have something else more important to do. I just want to let you know that I'm here to help. That was maybe, what, 30 more seconds of words?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It changes the whole thing. But this mechanics has changed. So what happened with this, let's go back to what we were talking about with Chauvin and George Floyd, right? Yeah. When I watched the video, you definitely can see that George Floyd was having some issue with being claustrophobic and getting inside the vehicle. OK, now we're not saying that it's made for comfort.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And if you get arrested, it's not going to be a fun experience. But can we be a little bit different? One cop said, I'll put the window down. I'll put the window down. And you can even see Floyd saying, I'll do the countdown. Let me let me count down before I get inside the car. Is it possible?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Is it possible for us, especially if the person's handcuffed, to reach down into a degree of humanity to another human being and say, you know what? Take a deep breath. I'll count with you. Can we get you in the car then? Let me tell you my name. My name is Sergeant Curtis. I don't want to hurt you. Look at me in my face. Look at me. Take a deep breath, my man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
OK, I see you breathing a little bit better now. You're going to be going to jail and you got to get in the car, but you got to work with me. Now, granted, I'm talking in an air conditioned place. I slept in a great hotel last night and it's a lot easier than being in the field. But I've been in the field, you know, I've been in the field and I've made mistakes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But we got to be better than kneeling on a person's neck for that period of time. So the specifics of what he was convicted for, I know that we could pull it up and look at it. One of the charges I believe he was convicted for was involuntary second-degree murder, right? I don't believe he was trying to kill George Floyd. I don't believe he was trying to kill him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But could his behavior have contributed to it? Possibly. You're still kneeling on a person's neck for that period of time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I wasn't really very intimately involved in the details to how he died. But that's kind of like the gist of it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
100%, you're 100% right. Because if you listen to the tape, there's a guy on the side that's yelling at Chauvin. He said, look what you're doing. Get off that man's thing. And then what happens is then it becomes a battle between the officer and this other person. I'm standing my ground and you're yelling at me and I'm the officer here.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And nine minutes or six minutes or whatever minutes it was is really a mere seconds because I'm locked into this as opposed to focusing on this person. That's why bystanders to me, if you want to be a bystander, stand back. record, but don't be yelling.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Sometimes you don't. And we see what happens when you don't. That's why mental health awareness is so important for police. It's, it's, it's so, so important and not to be stuck in that, that, that, just police ecosystem and have other things to do. Because that's what happened with that, in my opinion, that's what happened with that Chauvin thing. Is what?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That he got locked into, I'm the officer, because police have this thing called ask, tell, make. Ask, tell, make. You ask them to do it, they don't do it. You tell them to do it, then you make them do it. Got it. But that model only works sometimes. There is a model. So the father of modern day policing is a guy named,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I was a Marine. So when I was 17, I joined the Marine Corps. So this was 1987 that I went into the Marine Corps. Paris Island, 3rd Battalion, I Company, super hardcore. And my dad was in law enforcement too. And I cannot overstate... the importance of having a strong male role model in your life. My father, I genuflect to that man. He died in 2017.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So what he did was really interesting. He created this thing where it was the principles of policing that really the policing should be modeled after. I think that you could probably pull those up, the nine principles of policing. But one of them that I find interesting and that I've always – he talks about persuasion, advice and warning. I remember because of PAW, persuasion, advice and warning.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So while modern day police have asked, tell, make, Peel talked of this thing called persuasion, advice and warning. So is it possible I could persuade this person? And obviously, if it's if it's a dynamic situation and I got to take care of business, then I have asked, tell, make always in my pocket. Right. I got a big tool belt.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But it's persuasion, advice, warning, something else I can put in my belt. Can I potentially persuade this person? Because time is often on the police officer's side. Persuasion, can I give him some advice? Listen to me, sir. Listen, if you don't, the other officers are going to come here and they're going to make it more difficult. Don't you see that I'm working with you?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And we can work together and get this thing done. We can do this together. Warning, if the other officers come and I step back, then they're going to be a lot different than I am. This is just another tool that the police can put in their belt so that we don't have to get into this situation.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I bet you if Derek was to be able to go back and think back, I bet you he would have done things differently, in my opinion.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Oh, I don't know. But he's got the federal case, the federal case, and he's got the state stuff. And I think he's run has another case running concurrently for tax evasion as well. So he had a whole bunch of different things going. And I'm not saying that he was guilty of any of all those things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. Which which which case had that? Can we definitely say that it was race? Which one? It's very difficult to find that case.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I think it's that, I don't agree with that model because I think that that separates us more and more. But you go to any bar in downtown Nashville and you're going to find people of all different races sitting around and you might engage with a person. It takes us back away from the content of one's character.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I don't, you know, what people call racism, I think that it's more bias because it's much more biased than it is racism. I'll give you an example. I was invited in the Vegas airport. This guy's walking in front of me. His pants are like sagging down and you could see his underwear. What was really interesting was it was like this really interesting floral print and socks matched his underwear.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I had a beer or two. So I wasn't messing with the guy. I was walking by. I said, oh man, I said, dang, them underwear. Nice. They look good with it. And he turned around and he was like, who are you talking to? Like, I mean, going off. And then a TSA agent comes up and it's like, And he said, he's talking about my, and I was, this is me in civilian clothes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He said, he's talking about my underwear. And the agent, the TSA agent says, well, they do match your socks. And the guy gets pissed off and walks away. Now you can picture this situation happening, right? Now, when you picture the situation happening, did you think it was a black guy?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But the point in the story – and it was a black dude – but the point in the story is that – we have biases to behavior. It wasn't because of the person's skin color. And then what happens is if we create a squad of police, this is just because you're black, that means you're going to respond to black people. What if that doesn't necessarily, what if you don't?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And what I can say is that my dad, I wanted to do everything like my dad. So my dad was in the military, my dad was in the army, but I wanted to be a Marine. And my dad was in law enforcement. So while I was in the Marine Corps, You know, I was on embassy duty.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
People are scared to say it. It's because they're scared. They're going to be true.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. Why would that sound racist? Okay. Name me three major cities where you think there's a lot of crime. Three major cities.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yes, they do have more crime. Okay, how about Chicago? Chicago. Chicago. Now, when you think about that crime, do you think of it as black crime?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'll show you something. Can you pull up heyjackass.com? Have you heard of this? Heyjackass.com. This is a guy who tracks every single shooting that occurs in Chicago by the minute, where it occurs, by race, and time. How does he do it? He's like the Santa of bullets or whatever. How does he get it all done? Santa of bullets? Or like how's he doing it all in one night?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Before you look, before you look, before you look, how many people do you think have been shot
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I ended up going to embassy duty, which is like one of the best, most challenging duties in the Marine Corps if you go to the right countries. And I was in Belgrade. It was actually when I was in Caracas. When I was in Caracas, there was a— And that's Venezuela? Caracas, Venezuela. There was an economics officer who took a liking to me, and he knew I wanted to go into law enforcement.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Year to date, 80, 330 total shots. So that means 330 people have been shot and we're not even, how does a mayor have a job if that many people get shot? Now, look at it by race.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So you're saying a lot of very, very interesting things. And I'll speak to the first one first. Why do I think it is? I think it's because. OK, let me speak to the specific question. Why is it that it happens in black culture?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's part of the subculture. And so I'll tell you why it happens is because not enough people call it out. It's okay for rappers to come and be in places and celebrated when rap culture has become so openly violent, not only towards each other in gangs, for gang versus gang, but towards women, and that is not called out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That's where people who have a voice need to stand up and say, no, young man, that's not appropriate. That doesn't work. When I spoke to you in the beginning, I said I cannot overstate the importance of my father being in my life. But for that fact, I was able to reach the degree of just basic – and I'm not going to say success. I'm content with what I have.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But for me having both of my parents in my life for such a significant amount of time, a lot of these kids don't. A lot of them do not. And the fact that that's not called out –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And that, you know, and I don't want to turn this into a political conversation, but I have very strong feelings about the fact that there's so many people in one in a certain group that don't say that is not acceptable behavior. We're not going to condone that. You must act and behave differently. Otherwise, we can't hang here. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And until that happens, that's going to just be a continuous cycle.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He said to me, he said, in the 90s, the economy in Vegas is going to explode. I got on a plane, and within like a couple weeks, flew and took the test, and then I ended up in the academy in 92. Wow. Yeah. Dude, I bet the streets were hot in 92, were they? It was crazy. It was the wild, wild west. Vegas was the wild, wild west. You know, everyone says that their department is the best.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So preservation is a thing, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So the mayor—so we have a unique situation in Las Vegas where we didn't report to the mayor. Our sheriff was— was an elected official. So the police in Las Vegas didn't have to worry about politics with the mayor. The sheriff was almost every single time a police officer before. And in fact, the former sheriff who was the governor now was one of my sergeants. He understood policing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So the top-ranking law enforcement person understood policing, and I think that that became a very effective model where you don't have to report to a mayor. That mayor is dealing with politics, and the police chief has to report to that mayor. So how do we affect this situation to happen? It's not the police that are going to fix it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I mean, in a media, they can put a Band-Aid on it and put cops on dots and corners and do stuff like that. But we have to say – Fathers have to be in households. They have to raise their kids.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I can tell you in the beginning when we started speaking, I said, if I was, one of the other things I said that affected me is the times that I didn't spend with my children when I could have, where I was either working or being selfish and doing something on my own, whatever. Fathers have to be involved in those lives.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Otherwise, those young men are going to continue to do the same exact thing in New Orleans, in Memphis, in Chicago. Everyone else says, we should be screaming at the top of our lungs when we see that 300 something people were shot in one city. And that's OK. How is that OK? It's not. But then you'll see people protesting about this or protesting about that and claim to really care about humanity.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But before we're done with this podcast, there is going to be at least two or three and maybe 10 people that are going to shop across all these different cities. But you know what? We don't. You know, there's a saying that says all men are hypocrites. Most deny it. I myself admit it. And I do. I admit I'm a hypocrite. My life is good, Theo.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
If I really, really cared, if I really, really cared, and this is an honest admission, then maybe I would, as a retiree with all the time I have, maybe find one of these Chicago kids and spend time with them and do something. And maybe at some point in my life I will. But I think that we have to call out our own hypocrisy in life and say that, We as Americans love our lives the way they are.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
These people protesting all these places, they're getting a latte at Starbucks right afterwards, getting on TikTok and sending out videos and claiming that they're revolutionaries. They're not revolutionaries. There are no real revolutionaries right now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'm going to say that Las Vegas policing, especially in the 90s, I call it the golden era of policing. Mm-hmm. which is phenomenal. I mean, you really got to understand the psyche of the human being because so many people come to Vegas to do whatever crazy thing they want to do. And, and you got to interact with people on that level.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Did you mean just male role models or did you mean black male role models?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
That's a thing with police, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
She's alive. So if she's alive, maybe a good prayer would be, you know what? Because just think she's doing something right this second. Just think if you started to fervently pray for that specific person, you'd be building her before she even gets to you, bro.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
May I ask you a semi-personal question?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Is the reason why, maybe holding you back a little bit, the fact that you still like dating multiple women or like being, you don't want to be in lockdown, you kind of really want to experience more?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
With sleeping in the same bed with a person, does that bother you?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So maybe that's something that you could find in common with a person and maybe – your intimacy comes together at a certain space and you still have enough space to be apart from each other. And if they're have, if on the, at the jump, if they're cool with that, maybe that's something that you can start off from that point. Cause some people don't like to sleep together. You had a sleep divorce.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It is because you deal with everything they deal with in LA, everything they deal with in New York. And then Vegas is just, you know, they say New York is a city that never sleeps. It kind of does. I'm a New Yorker. It kind of does. Vegas never sleeps. Vegas can't sleep because it's coked up. Yes, for sure.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You never heard of sleep divorce?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, sleep divorce is where people don't sleep in the same bed, but they maintain an intimate relationship. And then their relationships actually flourish. And I don't like to call it sleep divorce. I like to call it like solitary intimacy, like where you're cool being by yourself and you're cool being by yourself when we come together whenever. Just some stuff to throw out there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yes. Because of technology and the advent of cameras and everyone. When I came on the police department, people defaulted to the police being right. Now people default a lot of times to the police having questions about the police behavior. And it's fair because a lot of things have occurred that would make people question that. So it's changed in the sense that people always have the cameras out
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Obviously, police now all have body cams. So things are documented and memorialized in a digital format that we didn't necessarily have before. And I think it's essential when a person can take away a person's freedom or take away a person's life that it's documented. I got a ticket. I got a ticket, first ticket in my life. I got it in July last. Oh, really? It was the trippiest story.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And it made me realize what people have to go through. And so check this out. So in Florida, I have a house in Florida and I was riding my e-bike on the beach, just pedaling. There was a plastic cup. I pick up the plastic cup and I ride my e-bike over to throw it away. And I turn around and I use my throttle to go back.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
All of a sudden, this buggy with lights and siren comes screeching up on me on the beach. And this cop jumps out. First thing he says to me is, I need you to get off the bike and I need to see your license. Those are his words as soon as he stops me. And I don't know if he was intimidated by me or what. And I was like, oh, you're not going to get any problems out of me?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Coke or meth. Was meth a little bit popping? It is because, you know, the area command that you work would kind of define what drug you would deal with primarily. Got it. And so there was a time where I was working in the Northeast, and they used to call them—it was called Frank area now. They used to be David area.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He does look like an older version of Sean Kingston. Yeah, yeah. He was sweating. I mean, he looked like—I just can't even explain how stressed out he was over me— riding my electric bike on the beach and he wrote me a ticket. And so I was like, you know what? I'm going to ride this whole thing out because I want to see what it feels like from the side of, because I gave out a lot of tickets.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I want to see what it, I went to court and everything. I had to go before a judge. There were people in there for like felonies and everything else. And I went through the whole process and, and, and, and pay my ticket. And it was insane.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's disappointing to me that at this day and age that there are still police that don't that the first thing they say to you out of their mouth is get off the bike. I need to see your license. It goes back to what I was saying to you before about when I just, you know, told you how I interact. I prefer a person to interact.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I mean, you're going to be, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Every single interaction from the police should be something that should be friendly and almost as I'm the servant. Because we are. We're supposed to be serving. Even if a person makes a mistake. Come on, bro.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I like that analogy. You know, to me, I think it would actually make policing less stressful if the police interaction from the police side is that entree into being so kind and polite from the very beginning of the stop. Because you're not going to get into that many arguments with people because most people are like, dang on it. I've been. written tickets that people are like, thank you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
They called them Frankites or Davidites because they'd be up just tweaking out, doing stuff on trailers and everything. And, you know, there was a transition for me in my life because I was a straight-edge guy, and I'd look down on drugs, and I didn't have a lot of— I guess empathy for people who were using drugs. And now I'm, I've completely learned the opposite, you know?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You know, because, and I'm not saying that I was great at doing, there were a lot of cops who know how to talk and act that way. And it's usually when you get older, it's just that this, if you look, if you know, if everything looks like a nail, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail or whatever, if the hammer is your only tool, then everything looks like a nail.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And that's the only way that you deal with things is hammering it in as opposed to trying other methods, make that tool belt bigger.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And that's deep, man. You know, the way that you adjust, evolve, and treat people. And I learned this very interesting story when I first hired on a police tour. And it's race incident here. I was coming on Graveyard, and this is downtown. There's a foot pursuit, swing shift, gets the guy in custody.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The sergeant, I was an officer at the time, the sergeant calls me over and asks me to transport the guy. I get there, and the guy's leaking. And a black dude, he's pissed. Two officers that took him into custody, white. One of the officers was a guy who was a senior field training officer, and he was about to go to SWAT. And I'm this rookie, rookie.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I come over, and the black dude, his eye is leaking. And they call medical and medical comes while I'm sitting there. The sergeant says, hey, you take him because, you know, he figured he the guy would feel more comfortable with me because the guy was saying, oh, they just roughed me up. So I get the guy. So this is the important part. The FTO has his handcuffs on the suspect.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
What you're supposed to do is conduct a pat-down, go through the whole process, put your handcuffs on the person, and then transfer him to the car. I didn't want to offend the FTO by making it seem like I didn't trust his pat-down. So I put my cuffs on the guy. I take the guy, and I'm getting ready to put him in my car, and the ambulance lady says, he can't go straight to jail.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You got to take him over to UMC, which is the hospital, because they got to sew that up. Take him over to UMC. We go there. The doctor says, I got to uncuff his hand, cuff him to the gurney. And I'm talking to this dude and I'm just like vibing with him. And like, I just, I felt kind of bad for him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I like, he just was like, you know, you look at a person that just dejected, like their life sucked and he was being booked for running. You know, they were trying to stop him. He was running. Right. Yeah. And he's, he's leaking. He's like, just do just like his life was sucked. So we get down to the hospital. They sew him up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I recuff him, bring him to the jail, CCDC, the detention center, county detention center. I get him inside. Before we get there, the guy said, he was John Doe at that point. So if a person doesn't tell us their name, we book him as John Doe. The dude says to me, he goes, you know what, man, you've been cool to me. I'm going to tell you my name. He tells me his name. I put it into the computer.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
My computer starts going crazy. all this information pops up in his warrant pops up. The dispatcher says, ask me if I'm clear for the information. And he says, he's wanted by the FBI murder by burning. I get him down to, to the jail.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The CEO is one of my boys. And he goes, He's screaming. He's like, Chris, what? He's yelling. He comes back, this big, huge knife the guy had on him the whole time. Big, big knife. You didn't check him. I didn't check him because I didn't want to offend the FTO.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And the dude says to me, as he walks by when they brought him out, because he got booked on additional charge, he says, he said, you know, if you weren't kind to me the way that you were, I could have done you in the hospital and I would have done you. Me being kind and polite to that guy saved my life from that stupid rookie mistake that I made. Yeah. Like, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I got to see like, I would go to a single wide trailer at 3am ladies completely tweaked out of her mind and her kids are awake, all nasty, you know, crying. The neighbors have called spaghetti sauce on the walls and I'd be pissed at the mother because,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You should also incentivize officers with more than 10 years to go back to patrol. One of the challenges that happens is you get cops, they want to go through the ranks, they get to work in specialized units and then never go back to patrol.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
They get disconnected from patrol. Then you have young guys teaching young guys. And it's usually the older wisdom that is what helps policing. Because I remember I was in the knucklehead when I was young. I know I made a lot of mistakes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Right. So that's a specialized unit, specialized training. You can keep your primary responsibility because what happens is you end up being on call. And that sucked because you would be in the middle of something and you'd get a call out. And you have to go. And you have to go. Because there's not many of you. No. And you need a team to assemble. On rare occasions, you can call out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Um, so they'll put out an opening and interview department is different, but they'll put out an, you know, there's an opening and then, uh, you interview for it. And then, uh, you, how well you doing the interview, you get selected. And I was the young, at the time I was the youngest ever to be selected on the team. And, um, that was a phenomenal experience.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so once you're on the team, you know, you get your, you know, your phones, but then you had pagers too. And, uh, you get your gear, your jacket and everything. And, um, you just start responding to calls, you know, obviously, obviously after training, you start responding to call outs. And, um,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
If anything on the department weighs on you, it's talking to a person for a significant amount of time or listening to a person talk to for a significant amount of time, being part of the team, and then the person does themselves. Because hostage negotiation isn't really a good term for it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It's more of a crisis negotiator because most of the time that we do it, it would be from a person in crisis, a person that wants to 405, as we said earlier.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Okay, so an actual situation? Okay, so this one was deep, and I wasn't the primary on this one. And this is a story that resonates, and they even tell us in the class now. A guy whose life was horrific. He had a terminal illness. He had a—and I wasn't—when I was younger, I didn't realize how many people have back issues, and their back pain is just suffering, and they don't want to live anymore.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And what happened throughout my career is I ended up seeing that little girl that I was trying to protect becoming the parent of a kid in the same type of situation. It's just cyclical. And then for the police to be judgmental, I found that to be incredibly disheartening for me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so I think what he had was cancer. He had a back issue that was just causing him severe, severe pain, and his wife left him because it was a whole bunch of issues, and he had financial issues for all these things that he was going through. So what happens is you assemble a team. There's a primary— There's a secondary. The primary is a person that talks to the person. They're on the phone.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Their sole focus is to talk to the person.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Okay. The secondary is the person that is monitoring the primary and getting information from the rest of the team. And the team can vary, but two positions that are really important is the intel liaison, which is the person that tells the background of the person. The person's this age. They... They were married this amount of time. All the intel that you can possibly get on the person, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Then you have the tactical liaison person because you have a SWAT team that's assembled as well because you may have to potentially breach or go inside of the residence. So tactically, you have to know, has this place been evacuated? Have you – Are there weapons inside? Has this person done this before? So the TAC and the intel person feed this information to the secondary.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The secondary can write notes and feed it. Then you have a scribe who scribes all this information. So the case that I was talking to you about was this person who had gone through this thing. He was going through this thing. And it was a newer negotiator that was on as the primary. And after all this time of talking to this guy and getting to know him, the guy says –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I know exactly what you're doing and you really suck at it. And then shot himself in the head. He said, you really suck at it. That was the last thing that he said.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, it is. And that person had to live with that. That's their record on the department.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It can be. And part of it was that because, I mean, how is it and what is good, right? How is it and what is good? Because, I mean, I actually –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
brought a scenario that i was going to work through with you if you wanted to try to be a negotiator and yeah so so basically this is pretty cool man because this is this is a this is a i put this together uh which is a composite of a few different negotiator things and i'm going to be uh i'm going to tell you you're going to be the primary okay and uh so here's the situation um you i can read it or you can read it on what the situation is and um actually i'll read it to you like as if you just showed up at the scene that you just rolled up all right okay great all right
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And in fact, if there's anything I think back in my life, it is if ever I treated another human being improperly or if I didn't spend time with my children when I could have spent time with my children. You know, it makes me get emotional sometimes when I can think of specific situations. I'll tell you a story, man. There was one time where I took a little girl from her mom. And this is in Vegas?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Theo, you're going to be the primary in this one, okay? You got it. The subject's name is Michael Brady. He goes by Mike. The background intel we have is he's a middle school biology teacher for the last 14 years. He's a youth pastor at a local Christian church for the last seven years. He's 47 years old, and he's a white male. He's been married for 18 years. His wife's name is Carol Brady.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
She's 46 years old. They have one son. His name is Bobby Brady. He's nine years old. Today, Michael was put on administrative leave for school when sexual assault detectives came to the school in an anonymous tip. He allegedly impregnated a 14-year-old student. Her name is Pamela Phillips. Mike Brady is currently barricaded inside the residence.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
We got the call because Mike came home, told his wife to get out of the house as he entered an upstairs bedroom and shut the door. He appeared to be holding a firearm. He is currently barricaded inside the residence. Your personal observation, Theo, is that as you pulled up to the scene, you see a young boy in a baseball uniform talking to detectives and he's crying hysterically.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Presumably this is the son, Bobby. Okay. Tactical intel. There are two known firearms. There's a shotgun inside, 45 caliber automatic pistol. SWAT has arrived and they set up the inner perimeter. Neighboring houses have been evacuated. You can ask me three questions and then I'm going to begin as though I'm Mike and you're going to talk to me. Okay, I asked you three questions.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, that one you can throw us out. You can ask me three questions that pertain to it because you're going to go online, and when you go online, it's going to be pretty intense.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You're going to be talking to me, and I'm Mike Brady.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Nope. His record is completely clean. Okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Very good question. He is... He takes... a sleeping pill to sleep. He has a sleeping issue. Okay, sir. Hello?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You did 25 years of service. Well, I did 21 plus, and then I bought some of the time. A guy actually bought my time out to go work for him. In Nevada, you can do that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I have had a tough day, but I mean... I screwed up this time, didn't I?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
How's it going to be okay? This girl, this girl's pregnant, man. I mean, how am I going to face anyone after this?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
This is in Vegas. Oh, yeah, all my police stuff is in Vegas. There was one time that the mom was completely took off. She was slamming speed. And she was just up and just doing all kinds of stuff. And the neighbors was at some point called. Yeah, slamming speed is injecting it? Yeah, it's injecting it. Okay. And so I go there. And I remember I had to take the little girl from her mom.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, he is. Of course he is. I knocked up a 14-year-old girl. I'm a youth pastor in a church. I teach at a school. My life is over. Give me a good reason why I shouldn't just put this thing to my head and blow my brains out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But, you know, how can I face him, man?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Exactly. See, Theo, you are super wise, brother. That's exactly why we wouldn't put the son on the phone. Because that's exactly what he would likely do. He would likely. And so this is why we train. This is why we train. So a couple of other things, right? When we said son, that was a good opportunity for you to do what? Identify his son by name. Because isn't Bobby different than saying son?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. It's different, right? Yeah. My wife, that was opportunity. And I knew that. No, no, no.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Use it as instructional. It's very interesting. But that's when you say Carol, right? Yeah, Carol. Yeah. But what I like is that... you humanize the situation, right? Like you, that's the thing again, is where you get the feel where like you, he's talking to a person that he could potentially relate to.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And, and you, you create that kind of that air about the situation where you would get all the costs would be, just completely freaked out or completely militaristic, you know? And I like that you kind of humanized the whole situation. And this is obviously super condensed.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And this girl was crying in such a way, I recorded this, that it was almost as if someone was literally, though I wasn't, pulling her heart out of her body. Now, mind you, that's a kid who... loves their mom no matter what. You love your parent in spite of, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I don't think it is crazy. I think it's normal. So there are a lot of people who, obviously not from official police, but there are people even in their own mind would say, I wouldn't want to live if that was the case. Right. Right. So I'll tell you a situation that I dealt with. I sent some audio for it. It was a guy named Michael Chevalier. This was a big case in Vegas. So here's what happened.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So the call comes out. I'm a sergeant at the time, right? Swing shift. So it's still light outside. The call comes out that a lady is talking on the phone to her friend, and the friend hears the struggle, and then all of a sudden the line goes dead. She calls 911, and... Obviously, we get dispatch. And sergeants, when we hear certain calls, we're like, that's something I should roll to.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
We don't have to, but that's a call I should roll to. I happen to be close enough to where the two offices – so it's one of those apartment communities where it's one floor, two floors, and then there's a top floor, and then there's an apartment all the way down here. So the officers – I pull in the parking lot, and I see my officers walking to the door.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Then all of a sudden, I see the door open, and the officers pull out their gun and fall back to try to get away from whatever was going on at the door. And I hear them on the radio, 413, subject has a 413. So the subject came to the door with his arm around the female and the firearm to the female. I have my car in the parking lot. Wow. Then obviously code red. That means only emergency traffic.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
All the officers come. We get to the we get into the front of my car and I have a dry race and I'm on the hood of my car pointing out where I want my officers to go and how we're going to deal with the situation. One of my officers at the time, really sharp guy. He says, hey, Sarge, I got my rifle in case he comes out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Let me go over to this pizzeria right here and I can engage him if he comes out with the gun. Great lesson. If one of your subordinates has a great idea, be very quick to listen and learn from them because it was a great idea because the second he gets over there, Chevalier comes out and starts shooting at us.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
We all go down, my guy engages Chevalier at the door and he hits the doorframe and all this wood and everything hits Chevalier and Chevalier goes back inside the house. I'm like, I gotta call in. There was no time, no negotiators had not been around, nothing. So I said, if I call him, he's not gonna be shooting, he's not gonna be hurting anyone.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So I get in and I start having a conversation with Chevalier and we develop a rapport. Interestingly, I was able to record a segment of this conversation We'll play the conversation, and then I will tell you the nuances of the conversation that occurred, the aftermath of it, and how deep negotiations can be. Okay, cool.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And I'll always remember in my mind that I have to learn to look at other people, not only the way that I'd want to be treated, but through the experiences that I've had. That's how I look at people now. You know, once you get older, you can start to get emotional about just the simplest of things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Okay, so let me give you some background on this, okay? I still get really amped just listening to that again because it takes me right back there. So Michael and I have been speaking for a while, and the situation seemed like it was pretty much calm. Negotiators were arriving, SWAT team had arrived, and they were setting up in their position.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
At that point, Michael freaked out when he saw the SWAT team. Because you see the SWAT team in their greens and their rifles, and you know that at some point, if you have a hostage, that something's likely going to happen. It's not going to be good for you. Ultimately, the decision was made to go to Condition 2.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Condition two is when my job is to talk Michael in front of a window so they can shoot and kill him. So there is this interesting element to talking to a person that you are talking into their own demise. Wow. Talking to a dead person, essentially. That ended up not happening. What happened was through electronic means, we were able to find out that Michael was doing things to the female.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The decision was made to do an explosive breach into the apartment and then take Michael out because Michael had been raping her. And I'm condensing this because this is a very long, drawn out process. Got it. And he kidnapped the woman? Yeah, he did. She had her door open. She was out talking to her friend and he grabbed her and pulled her inside. Got it. Pulled her inside. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Ladies just out there talking. Unreal. So ultimately after Swat goes in and kills him, she's laying right there. Talk about PTSD or what a person has to go through. It's absolutely horrific. But let me talk about the nuance of language. If you watched... what Michael was saying, mind you, the team is listening and watching every single word that a person says.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
There's one very, very interesting part of his conversation where he says the hostage. Now, again, we would always want to change that to back to saying the person's name, but I didn't get a chance to do that. And I did it other points in it. But what he says is she were relieved and perfectly calm. And he stops at perfectly. And she will be released unharmed. So why did he stop at perfectly?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He stopped at perfectly because he knew that he was doing things that she was not perfect. Our minds and our language are so intimately connected. And when you get to understand, see where he says release of the hostage? Play that again, that part. Just back it up a second or two.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You see, he stopped and he flipped it because he knew that she wasn't perfect. He knew he was doing horrific things to her. And we listen to these types of things because we have to make a decision. How long do we wait before we go inside? Like, is he just sitting there or is he actually doing that horrific thing?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And in becoming a negotiator, even in your own life, you're very, very careful with your own word choice. And often I'll find myself when I speak to people, there are certain words that I don't use. I just have excised them from my vocabulary.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And it's about – and positivity is also – like when I said sleep divorce, like I've caught myself because I don't like to attribute divorce to something that could potentially be positive. I almost – I don't almost. I commit myself to utilizing the positive form of speech whenever I possibly can. And it's incredibly important. It changes a lot of things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Give me an example of that. So I don't use the word problem. Like I say challenge. Because then you look at things as a problem. Like who wants to see a problem? I'd like to see a challenge because if you overcome it, then it's just a challenge.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You can almost always, if there's a negative connotation to something, even when you go out with your mom to dinner, if you think about and listen to the words that you speak, you can almost always a positive way that you could flip it. Back in the day, I, it really is. It's fun too. When you think about taking that much.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yes. And it means you care about what comes out of your mouth. You know, back in the day, I wrote a dating book called Mac Tactics. Really? I did. It was called Mac Tactics. The art, the science of seduction meets the art of hostage negotiation. In 2005, I wrote this book and it was about utilizing the, yeah, there it is. It's about utilizing language in the day. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So it's interesting because it was more about, so Mac, I changed Mac from, from what most people think Mac is. And I changed it to method, action, confidence, and knowledge. I co-wrote it with my boy, Rob Weiser. Rob is like really the, I mean, Rob is the NYU dude, super smart. He's my boy. Like I was the, the content guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And so method, action, confidence, knowledge, and all of those were what we call the pillars of power. And conversation was incredibly important as far as method was concerned. And I, Minimal encouragers. So you know what a minimal encourager is? So minimal encourager and paraphrasing are two things that negotiators learn to master.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So a minimal encourager, like when I'm looking at you, how you're minimally shaking your head like that, you're naturally encouraging me to continue on with my speech. We have verbal minimal encouragers as well. Like when a person's speaking, you're like, mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. So when you learn to naturally incorporate those things into your speech, it really encourages a person to open up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So here's how we do it. Like, uh, tell me about your, what your day was like yesterday, a small segment of your day. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So when you were on out yesterday, is it tired because you were having fun or was it because you just didn't have enough rest?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I'm saying back to you. It shows that I'm listening and that I care about what the outcome was. Usually men will encourage it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. And it gives you time to just kind of build a person's – Trust in sharing with you. Conversation and listening are two very, very important things. Not to be overbearing in your conversation and listening to the other person and showing that you're listening. Negotiators are very good listeners.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So me and me doing that exercise with you, I had an idea that you were going to be kind of good at it. Most people don't even get – first of all, they don't have the confidence to even try it. I was very pleased that you were willing to try it. But I had this thing about it because you're like – Very, very relatable. I have a thing that I think that you would be a good negotiator.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I think that you have at your core the ability to be a really good negotiator. I thought about this movie where they call you Mr. Relatable, the primary. Where like, it was not even really you. It's like a person who was like a younger you that was like a person who was a stand-up comic. And the guy goes to the show and...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Decides he wants the 405 because he's just done with life, but he just related with you and that you negotiate him out of doing it and the police see you doing it. And then your arc is that you realize that in negotiating with people that how much it relates to things that you've been through in your own life.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It happens to us. It does? It 100% happens to us. But most of us don't have the natural relatability that you have. Like, I mean, no, I don't have any need to blow smoke, right? Like, I really like you. I think you're dope. Yeah, no, thanks, man. Yeah, look, I appreciate it. But your relatability level is off the meter with all races of people, with all genders of people. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I don't know if you relate it to yourself as well as you relate to other people, which might be an interesting, that might be even part of the element of Mr. Relatable, the primary, but there's something there. And I think that, you know, you could definitely be a negotiator. The primary. The primary. That's a cool name for something. The primary. There you go, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Imagine that, you know, you talk the guy out, someone gets it on video that you did it. And the police are reaching out to you to handle these high level negotiations. And he's trying to make your career work. You could do it, man. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. Because a lot of times as guys, we don't necessarily list like sometimes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And open-ended questions, you know, this is an excellent open-ended question. And how did that make you feel? That's an excellent question. And be sincere about it. Like this, the stuff that I'm selling is not, I'm not trying to sell it. This is the stuff that I'm sharing that really matters. Asking her like, how did that make you feel?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Like if the girl that you go on a date with, she's like, oh my goodness, it took me forever to get here. The Uber driver kept looking at me. It looked like my boob was popping. I get it. But how did that make you feel?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Was that a real thing? Oh, yeah, it was real. I know some of the cops that enter. And one of my cop buddies got pulled a guy off the street and drove him to the hospital and dropped him off. I mean, one of my closest cop buddies did that. And I actually got a recording of him telling me about that because I use it in a training class that I have. But that situation, that 100 percent happened. Wow.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah, that was that one. That was real. Yeah. That's unbelievable, huh? Yeah, that was, that was wild, man. And just to show you, you know, I wear this thing, it says momento mori, which means you remember you will die because you don't know when you're going to die. Can happen at any time, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And that's the messed up thing about cop work is that it's always at either the forefront or the back of your mind that, you know, you think about it. Like when I, you know what's crazy? When the driver picked me up today in the black vehicle and it's just, cops think like this. I was like, is this really, this guy not setting me up, right? This is legit.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Like, you know, you have this like a paranoia thing that goes around in your mind about like if a person walks into a restaurant, we always sit with our back to the door. It becomes uncomfortable sometimes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It is. Self-preservation. Because seeing death on those levels, it's a trip.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Oh, that's such a good question. For me, in the immediate... you kind of build up this thick skin where you don't, like for me, showing emotion is still a challenge for me in life. I get emotional and you sometimes will see that there'll be tears that come well up in my eye, but I don't want to let them fall down. So it's tough.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So anything that stands out, you know, so from a crime perspective or from just the culture of policing perspective, let's start with the crime perspective. So from the crime perspective, drugs are one of the most I mean, drugs and alcohol. OK, because drugs and alcohol kind of run hand in hand when it comes to the challenges that I would run into.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
but to answer your question, I think that in the, while you're doing it thick skin, as you get older, you become more like that. You know, I really feel what you're going through. You know, I wish that I could, and I'd like to say, I wish there's a way that I could help you. My goal is to figure out how I can do that. My, one of my lieutenants, I think I, you guys have the audio on this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
One of my lieutenants, um, four or five and there's audio of it. Um, this is horrific, horrific story.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yes. He, uh, so this guy was my, my, my lieutenant and, uh, you can play the audio if you want. And he's kind of, he tells everything right here. I'll give you a little background afterwards. Okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Oh, my God. So Hans was my lieutenant. Really? For a period of time, yeah. He was my lieutenant for a period of time. And he was one of the most soft-spoken, polite. Every time he would talk to you, he would say, please and thank you. Total family man. Wasn't a go-out-after-work drinker type guy. Everything in the time that I knew him was about his wife and his son, Max.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I remember there was a time, that's him right there, and that's his wife. She was a cop at one time. And I remember when he was my lieutenant, he would go take time off to go take care of her. And he would put me to take care of the lieutenant paperwork. And he was always just very pleased and thank you. And he was just...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
I mean, it's so weird for me to be able to say that one of the most kind, soft-spoken people to me and to the other people that he interacted with, which was so wild. So his wife had some significant medical challenges. And when I was younger, as I said before, I didn't understand how suffering from pain can be so debilitating for a person. Now, this is what's really interesting.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The drug scene in Vegas was, either it was crack or it was speed. And like I said before, depending on the area of command that you went. And I would go on Fremont, because I worked Fremont primarily, the first part of my career, and I'd see these young girls hooked on crack, prostituting on Fremont street. Then you would see guys who came into town to party in Vegas.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
In this situation, Hans walked outside after he shot his wife and his son. And he didn't get shot. The police didn't shoot him. And I believe that he wanted it to be a suicide by cop. And that's the only reason I can muster as to why he would walk outside. But they didn't shoot him and he went inside and then he 405'd.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
There you go, brother. See, you get this stuff, man. You really get this stuff. And that's why that word did not come out of his mouth. What a horrific situation. But let me tell you something, man. There are some people under those circumstances who don't want anyone else to raise their kid. Can I speak to why he did that? I don't know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But I can tell you that I do have experience with a person who's just something like that. And I sent you and there's no audio of this, but I did send a file of this case. Well, Timothy Blackburn, I was a negotiator on the team at this time and my team got the call out for Blackburn. I did not negotiate on an FBI agent who was connected with Blackburn, negotiated.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Quick story of what Blackburn did. Blackburn committed a robbery of a vault in Vegas. A million plus dollars. A million plus dollars he got away with. But he got caught. So Blackburn, that's Blackburn right there. Ooh, he's Asian. Yeah, Blackburn got caught. Yeah, Blackburn got caught.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Yeah. Well, so he got caught. He's in the North Las Vegas, one of the North Las Vegas detention, whatever, because it was a federal crime. And his wife breaks him out of the jail. He escapes. She put a screwdriver in her hair. He escapes. Dude, I would love them. There's a manhunt for them, okay? Yeah. It was like one of the biggest man hunts in Vegas.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And they kept telling us that we're going to catch him at some point. We're going to catch him. There's a reward. They find him barricaded in one of those daily suite hotels. This story's trippy. He doesn't want to talk to anyone on my negotiation team. He wants to talk to the FBI agent who arrested him. This FBI agent said, Blackburn said, am I looking at much time?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He said, your probation officer hasn't been born yet. And so Blackburn is in there and they're talking, you know, the FBI agent can, you know, hear the kids in the background. And Blackburn, it's like it was with his family. You know, he was he was a family guy. So SWAT is set up on the house and they're figuring out, you know, whether or when to breach. You know, time is on our side.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But here's what happens. A cop I know is on the outer perimeter, patrol officer. He's got his shotgun. He's moved from one position to the other, slinging his shotgun. His shotgun goes off. Blackburn thinks that SWAT is making an entry. It was just the guy had a negligent discharge. Blackburn then summarily shoots his wife, kid, and himself.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
They, you know, gambled the casinos downtown, and then they want to come and pick up these girls. They get trick rolled. I mean, it's just this like incredible web of vice that occurred. And it was like Gotham city. And what's trick roll. Is that that thing where you, somebody sends you that video or whatever?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
SWAT goes in just as he's doing that and shoot Blackburn as he's falling to the ground. And even in the testimony, the SWAT officer says, you know, I shot a dead man because he killed him. Because Blackburn was saying stuff like, I don't want to visit my kid through a plexiglass. And he was of the mindset that no one else is going to raise my kid or be with my woman. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And knowing that there are people like that. And that is a very, I have to walk very carefully when I say these things because this is very sensitive information. I'm only speaking from my perspective and the information that I have in hopes that it could help someone else in the future. That if you find yourself in a situation, God forbid, where there's a degree of...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You feel like you can't go on without a person. You can. And everyone has a sanctity life and should be able to go on. It's just, in my opinion, not the way to go.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Cut people slack too. Cut people slack. You're driving on the road when you're in a restaurant, you know, cut people slack. You could just really avoid so much stuff by taking a deep breath and making a different decision and not bullying people, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, so trick-rolled is when a girl, a prostitute, ends up getting you in a hotel room, either drugs you or steals your money and rolls you. So the guy's the trick, and they roll him for his money. Okay, like a finesse kind of. Sometimes a finesse, sometimes it's with drugs. I mean, there are a lot of different ways that that could potentially happen.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You know, and all of that stuff can lead to a person doing some bull crap like, you know, some of the stuff that we see when people barricade and want to 405 them, you know. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
You know, when I drive, I carry something in my center console that will address a road rage situation. And it's not what you think. I carry a clown nose, a red clown nose. And if I see a person driving crazy, I really do this deal. I really do this. I put the clown nose on myself.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And my only rule is I cannot take the clown nose off because I know that I'm not going to yell and scream at a person while I have the clown nose on. And if I take the clown nose off, I'm being a clown. You will not believe how many times that has stopped me from acting like an idiot. And it's just such a stupid, basic, simple way to avoid road rage. Because I'll tell you,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
The thing that will get the average citizen in trouble, two things. One is a domestic violence situation. And the number two thing is something that they do driving, drinking, or acting like an idiot in a road rage. Those are the two things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Say them one more time. So domestic, get into a situation. Because domestic is brother to brother. I've been to so many calls. One time I went to a call. A brother got out of the military. He was on leave from the military. They got drunk. They got into a fight. That's domestic. You know, it's a mandatory arrest. So that's an average citizen.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
And, you know, you lose your right to carry a firearm then. And it's a misdemeanor. And then the other thing is some kind of driving, road rage, battery situation that a person gets to or drinking and driving. Those are the top, top.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
So you call it three because if you want to say drinking and driving or road raging and getting into a situation where you end up, you know, getting into a fight with someone. Those three things are the civilian things that happen all the time. If you can control those things, Plummet.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
No, I'm down, brother. I mean, I really appreciate it. It was an awesome experience. Great hotel. Your team is phenomenal, brother. You got a really cool team, man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
lease or what is it to collect your retirement okay right okay so you want to get your pension right so you can buy it yourself but what happened was i was one of the first people because there was a guy in the private sector you ever heard the company zappos zappos the shoes yeah the shoes so the guy tony shea who passed away some time ago he was a billionaire and he had one foot in the grave that's an old zappos yeah yeah i won't talk anymore
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
It is. But this is good stuff, and I hope that it helps officers and civilians alike.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Did that ever happen? You know, the thing was not so necessarily bummed. It was that the people felt like it was in Vegas, like... come on, cop, we should be able to do this. I mean, like, why are you, you know, bothering us right now? Like, not, they wouldn't even be mad. It was almost like a joke or people who wouldn't want to try to pay you off or stuff like that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
But the funny thing is that when I was talking about the girls doing the trick roles and stuff like, and everything, these people were a lot of times close to my age. So I would see these, you know, Do you know this, the guy's name is, he was a famous poker player. I can't remember his name. I pulled him over one time, and he was completely cracked out. He's dead now, so it's not me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
He was driving? No, he was in the passenger seat.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
#584 - Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt.
Stu Unger, yeah, Stu Unger. I pulled Stu Unger over. He was in the passenger side of a car. The driver was this dude who I knew was a dealer, completely cracked out of his mind. And Stu tried to play me as I was standing at the passenger side of the car to try to get me to let him go, knowing that the car was full of all kinds of stuff.