True Crime Blog
The Greatest Job I ever Left SPI (pronounced “spy”), the acronym for Special Investigations Bureau, was a Detective Division assignment within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. It has been renamed to Major Crimes Bureau. Personally, I liked SPI better. The bureau comprises several details: Metro, Prison Gangs, Biker Gangs, Vice, Surveillance, and Organized Crime.…
While LAPD was busy kicking Rodney King’s ass somewhere off the L.A. to Canada freeway in Lake View Terrace, I was preparing for an upcoming civil trial in federal court. I was one of four defendants, all sheriff’s deputies, charged with federal civil rights violations.
Three Basic Rules to Successful Policing 1) Don’t Go Hungry Far too often though, we would. Not by choice, but by activity. In my day (at least), we worked eight-hour days on patrol. There was no lunch break. You ate when you could. When and if it quieted enough to do so, you scarfed a…
If you haven’t given much thought about how to prepare your daughters to date, consider some of these tips. I’m no expert, but I followed in the footsteps of my father, and the results are pretty good. Both of my daughters made it through those oft-difficult years unscarred, and each married terrific young men. Who…
Dickie Floyd here, Live from Vegas! This week I am attending a gathering of the California Homicide Investigators Association in Las Vegas, Nevada. These conferences are a lot of fun, but this time, I’m all business (not entirely true). Work creates thirst, but thankfully, I am here in the hospitality suite, signing and selling books.…
This Blog has Gone to the Dogs. In 1997 when I promoted to Homicide, I was introduced to a tool of investigation that was new to me: scent canines. Droopy-eared hounds, low and stable, good for cornering if they were ever to build up speed. Which they don’t. They are slow and steady, designed for…
My Daughters’ First Love This was just my luck. Both daughters fell for the same boy, at the same time. As a father, nothing is worse than the day you learn your daughters have fallen in love. I could see the sparkling in their eyes—each of them—and I knew it right away. This was going to…
On a warm L.A. morning, the first day of October 1987, Johnny Babbitt and I were working as radio car partners assigned to Firestone Station. Neither of us could have been any happier.
Hell found me. It seeped into my skin and flowed through my veins as I held the hand of a killer. The Interview “You’re not a bad girl, Valerie,” I told her, staring into the hollow eyes that shifted from me to the floor. I saw no remorse, no emotion. She seemed to be thinking, plotting…
Suicide cases run the gamut: shooting, hanging, jumping, overdosing on pills, and slashing wrists. Carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, asphyxia, suicide by train, suicide by cop, plummeting one’s car over a cliff.