True Crime Blog
“Here’s the deal, Lou: my partner and I have knocked on this guy’s door a half-dozen times and sat in his living room for hours asking him questions about his daughter’s death and helping ourselves to his M&Ms. He knows us by our first names, but he probably thinks we’re Dumb and Dumber, and doubts we’ll…
In the fall of 1991, I promoted to station detectives at Firestone Station. At first, I had difficulty embracing the new job. However, like any new job, there was a lot to learn about the basics of being a detective. Not just interviewing witnesses and solving crimes, but all of the processes such as writing…
From Part I of the Marina brawl: A second blow hit me with even greater force. And then a third. My head rang like a gong. I was in trouble, losing consciousness and losing the fight, and I knew I had to act. No help had come. I was on my own, badly hurt, and…
Grape Street is one of infamy in South Los Angeles. The 9500 block sits north of the Jordan Downs housing projects, and both are home to the Grape Street Crips. When I worked at Firestone, it was considered a cherry patch for drug and gun arrests, and it probably still is. It is also in…
The (semi-) Honorable J. Spencer Letts, who closely resembled the judge in the hit comedy My Cousin Vinny, sat high upon his throne in all of his black robeness, and glared at the four cop defendants who stood before him. Yours truly was one of the four.
“She’s going to kill us both.” The big man at the other end of my gun glanced over to see my partner pointing her gun at him—at us—the barrel bouncing in her shaking hands. He said, “I’m cool, man.”
Fugitive apprehension was filler work for SPI/Metro. The nature of our assignments was responsive: someone was kidnapped, we’d go to work; a prisoner escaped, we started a manhunt; a judge was threatened, we’d set up around-the-clock protection while investigating the source. And so on.