Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Celebrity Cop Reveals What Happens Behind The Camera | COPSTV
21 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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I was on Cops and I learned a lot about policing on that show. Shut up! I mentioned the same thing on the Theo Vaughn podcast. That was my lieutenant. I did not know that one. Well, how about this? Before we start where I was going, I brought you something. Are you cool with that? I'm going to give you something. I see you got stuff. It's not here. It's not here. It's here.
So this is a really cool little souvenir. This is a badge from my former department that you can put on your mantle piece from Las Vegas Metro. So it's a kind of a souvenir commemorative badge. I had to take it out of the case to travel over here, but you just set it up, and then it goes, and now you have a badge, and you just tighten that up when you get a chance. And then Matt now has a badge.
Why did you have to take it out of the thing? The badge comes by itself, and I had to buy this separately. So I bought that separately so you're gonna have to tighten it up and put it so that stays in there It looks very legit. No, it is legit, but I mean it's a legit commemorative badge You can't like pull anybody.
Oh, I can't so if I get a leather if I get a like if I took my wallet and I fix it in the wallet. Can I?
No, you can't.
I'll go to jail?
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Chapter 2: What does Sergeant Curtis reveal about his experiences on Cops?
I thought you were reformed, man. I'll get him in the back of my car. You said you were reformed, brother. Now this goes on your mental piece too.
Okay. All right. Cool. Thank you. You know what I have, what I've gotten several times? Whenever I do stuff with the sheriff's department, they always give me a little coin, you know? Challenge coin. Yeah, yeah. I got a bunch of, not a bunch. I got two coins.
Challenge coins are cool. Do you know the story behind challenge coins?
No.
So challenge coins are actually really interesting. They started really in the military and it's called the challenge coin because everyone from different units ends up going to bars afterwards somewhere. And then you see other people from different units. So you're supposed to carry a challenge coin. You put your challenge coin on the table.
Everyone puts a challenge coin on the table and you know that they're all kind of branded with their unit number and logo. If you don't have your coin, you got to buy the round. That's why it's called the challenge coin.
That's the history. I thought it was going to be some kind of a drinking challenge or something.
No, no, no. Well, you got to buy the drink. So I guess that's kind of it. But yeah, you know, to me, being a professional and a gentleman when you come to someone else's house is important. So I just wanted to gift you that. Nice. Thank you. You're very welcome, my friend. So about me, I am from New York, born and raised in Queens. My parents were very, very influential in my life.
In fact, if I were to think back. Why it is that I have made any degree of success in life, it's primarily because I grew up in a household with two parents until my parents got divorced. Very, very significant. And when I look at people and I interact with them, if they have both of their parents in their lives, I can usually see how that thread wove them into being successful.
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Chapter 3: How did Sergeant Curtis's upbringing influence his career?
Like there were some cuts in places that I think, come on, man. You know, and there's other things that, you know, you know, like the selling the American people. You know, the whole – the Cold War, which I get it and you need people to get behind it.
One of the big things when I was growing up because I was traumatized when I was growing up was that the Soviets, the imminent Soviet invasion, that they can come here, that they will land on – you've got movies like Red Dawn and it's like – the Soviets aren't coming here. Like they don't even have the ability to get here. They don't even have troop transports to get here.
They don't have the, you know, the naval vessels to get here. Like, how was that going to happen? How come nobody ever asked that question? And you know, it's not until you look back and you realize like, oh, you were, it was, it was a whole fear thing. I mean, I get it. I get it. But there's just certain things that I feel like, I don't know. Other than that, I think it was a great president.
Great president.
Yeah, and you know what's interesting about that is in my time in the Marine Corps is that I was on embassy duty. And one of the embassies I was at was, back then it was Yugoslavia, it's Serbia now, Belgrade. So I kind of understand some of the Eastern Bloc mentality and a lot of the reasons why some of those things happen. But, yes, so the mental institution was a part of my growing up.
And funny, it's interesting as you get older the things that you're not embarrassed to speak about because I used to be embarrassed that I spent so much time in a mental institution. I mean, it was just because my parents worked there.
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Chapter 4: What lessons does Sergeant Curtis share about parenting and success?
But, you know, kids, they tease. Kids are assholes. I just now – realize that as a kid, I used to be a little bit embarrassed to talk about that. But again, my dad was, you know, he worked there and my mom worked there as well. And I realized that two things I wanted to do was I wanted to go into the military and I wanted to go into law enforcement.
So my parents got divorced, which was incredibly crucial. That was the first time. How old were you? 13. Okay. First time I experimented with my First time I did a lot of different things that were just not the right thing to do.
And I think back on those things and it was definitely had a lot to do with the fact that there was this fracture in my family unit and it opened the door to things happening. So when people watch things like this, I always hope that there are takeaways. When I prepare to come to speak, and I've only been on a few podcasts, I always think about a kid who was maybe my age.
who is watching and is like, man, I was going through that. And hopefully they can take away something to transition their life into a different direction. But it worked out for me, fortunately, because at 17, my mother signed and I was able to graduate high school early and go into the Marine Corps. And I took to the Marine Corps like a fish to water. It was my thing.
I still think back, I mean, that was Parris Island, 1987, Full Metal Jacket had just come out. In fact, I watched Full Metal Jacket right before I went to boot camp. And it was, I mean, you know, Stanley Kubrick did a phenomenal job. He did a phenomenal job. And Paris Island in 1987 was just like that. And it was all about discipline.
And so if there was another, I guess, touch point that I'd like to address is that discipline was incredibly important to me. And there's so many parallels to like, the criminal side and the non-criminal side, the law enforcement side. Because to be a good criminal, you have to be disciplined. There has to be discipline.
That's usually why they slip up.
And that's why they slip up. That's the one key right there. And so in the Marine Corps, when we first got to 3rd Battalion Eye Company, when you get there, they teach you from the very beginning, it's about discipline. They had this thing where...
You had to go D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E, discipline, serve, discipline, instant, willing, obedience, order, respect for authority, self-reliance, teamwork, stop. And then you would have to freeze. So everyone in unison, so when a drill instructor comes onto the quarterdeck, everyone says that, D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E, says that, spells it out, and then you freeze wherever you are, right?
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Chapter 5: How does Sergeant Curtis describe his transition into law enforcement?
And I'm not even sure if it was 22, but I'm just throwing that number out there. But it was a lot of guns. So to me, that was the real essence of what Graveyard Patrol is about, like preventing crime by having that JDLR thing that's inside you. I can tell so many situations. There was one time where I drive by 7-Eleven and I saw these three guys walk into the 7-Eleven.
I know exactly where the 7-Eleven is. I can still see it in my head right now. They walked in and I parked my car. They didn't see me. I blacked out and I called it out on the radio as a suspicious situation. Now, remember when I told you in the Marine Corps how we got that discipline thing into cadence?
When you're on a squad and you all know each other really well, I could tell by the sound of the voice the tone and inflection of how my squad members would say things, whether I needed to roll to their call. They could just be calling a normal car stop.
And I could tell by the way they said, called out the car stop, one, two, three, Adam Baker, David, I'll be in the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard, whatever. I could tell whether I needed to roll to that. And I wouldn't even say it. Or sometimes I would say, troll, whatever, I'll be in route. So I see this, I call out the suspicious situation, all my peeps come, we go,
And as soon as we get there, there's a guy messing in the convenience store right by the, because we had slot machines and they were allowed to smoke back then. There's a guy messing around by the ashtray. You know those ashtrays that you can, that has a top? Yeah, yeah. We searched inside there. He had dumped a gun and they were going to rob the place.
And it's just one of those things where the JDLR translates into good policing. And that's why I always love patrol. And I didn't only do patrol, but I got to do a significant amount of time patrol. And I think that's one of the challenges in policing, which is another thing I wanted to touch on is policing.
One of the things that why policing is not as great as it can be is because the career track in policing is really interesting. What happens is you get people who are this accelerated-minded, I want to be a captain, or I want to do this, without learning what it takes to be a really good street cop. Because you cannot be, in my opinion, a really...
fully developed leader unless you understand street policing, because that's the backbone of policing. So you have these people that'll do a couple years in patrol, then they go to this unit. They do a couple years in that unit, they go to another unit. Then they promote, then they promote, then they promote, and they've only done two years in patrol.
Those people, in my opinion, never turn out to be the best of the best of leaders that we have in policing. But I did a significant amount of time in patrol. And all the patrol guys respect the guys who do a significant amount of time in patrol. But after that, I was able to go to – I was a recruiter for a while. Then I worked domestic violence for a while. Then I became a negotiator.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of affirmative action in policing?
The whole affirmative action.
I don't want anyone to look at me like that. Don't look at me like that. You want to compete? I'll compete with you.
Right.
Mano a mano. We could go.
I was just thinking, I keep talking about movies. Did you ever see Back to School with Rodney Nagerfield? Did you ever see it? I saw parts of it. I do like Rodney Dangerfield. Oh my gosh.
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Chapter 7: How does humor play a role in police interactions?
So there's, there's a scene where he's in class and business and he's sitting there and the professor is explaining that they're going to like, he's like, he's giving a, like, this is how you open a business. Like, let's say you want to open a factory and he starts explaining your first year and you have to find this in the land.
Then you have to buy all the factory and you have to do this and you have to borrow this. You have to get this. And then He's going on and on. He's like, then after this minute, we have the factory. And so as they're talking, Rodney Dangerfield in the movie is a super successful businessman with many, many companies.
And he's going back to school with his son because he's trying to convince his son to finish college. And so he kind of snickers, and the guy looks at him and – Then he's like, do you have something to say? And he goes, you forgot a whole bunch of stuff. He goes, first of all, why are you building? Why don't you lease at $12 a foot? How come you don't this?
You could take the right off on a 30-year depreciation of the – and he's like, what about this? And what about the Teamsters? You have to – and he just – just, you know, it's like – what works in your little college academics isn't exactly how it really works in, you know, when you're in the real world. And he just eviscerates this professor, just destroys him.
Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from the Rodney Dangerfield movie scene?
I mean, very quickly, you very quickly realize, like, it's funny because all the kids in class start turning, listening to him taking notes as he's rambling, because you can so clearly see, like, You're a professor. Like, you know, you graduated. You've got your master's. You went to school. But you've never really held a job. You've never opened a business.
You really don't know any of these things. This is what you've read in some books. Yes. And I've been doing this for 40 years or 30 years, however long. He's probably got to be in his 60s during the movie. I remember that feeling. But it definitely – and whenever I think about academics –
you know, trying to tell people how to do things that are already in the process of, are doing there who have like experience beats the ever living shit out of academics every single time.
Yes. And again, you know, I think that there was a place for academics in just about every realm, but you have to have the street hands-on experience to really, really kind of have the full knowledge of how to make change in an organization. Got to have both. So the females, I think that...
you want hot, sexy females. I hear you. You want hot, sexy Marvel females in limited capacity. And I get it. They're in charge of evidence. They're booking guys, fingerprints. I hear you. Taking photos. Can you give me a soft... Turn your head just to the side and put your... perfect mugshot. I didn't like, I hear you. I'm with you, bro.
I didn't expect it to go there, but I got you. I got you.
And then, so I guess then my career after patrol, like, you know, those hot mugshot of the day, the hot chick mugshot, like that's another woman probably taking those, those pictures, like, or the male model looking good. That's, that's some, that's a chick that took that, that booking photo and then put it out there to the press.
But, you know, it's interesting you say that because I believe that people should stay in shape throughout their career, males and females. I mean, you're talking about the aesthetic look, and I know that you're joking around, but do you ever see men cops that are just completely... The big old belly.
Come on, you're not chasing anybody down. What are you doing?
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