True Crime Blog
This week I wanted to answer a question often asked by those who follow my blog: What are you reading? Who are your favorite authors? Favorite Crime Authors Joseph Wambaugh When I was a young man just out of high school, I was introduced to Wambaugh novels by my good friend Johnny Babbitt. He asked if I…
“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.”
Since I was sworn as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff in 1983, the tally of department members killed in the line of duty has reached 37. Many of them were acquaintances, some were friends. As a homicide detective, I’ve investigated the deaths of others. This is a reminder of their sacrifices.
Baptism by Fire Before I had a chance to grab a cup of coffee or discover the location of my desk, I was given my first assignment as a homicide detective. A 16-year-old boy had been killed by a train in the City of Industry. It was a chilly fall morning, and I made the…
Nada Lazarevic, a first-generation American, immigrated from Yugoslavia. The 67-year-old was a seamstress by trade who had built a steady and substantial clientele. Thrifty and hardworking, Nada saved until she could pay cash for her modest home and sensible car. She abhorred debt. Nada was living The American Dream, until she disappeared. That was the…
Crimson was twenty-two, single, and vivacious. The daughter of perhaps the most forgiving woman I’ve ever met. She had recently broken up with Derek. He was the macho sort who boasted of his combat experience as a paratrooper during Desert Storm. Which, as it turns out, was a lie. He wasn’t a paratrooper, he hadn’t…
LASD Roundup in Laughlin, Nevada This week 1,143 retired members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department gathered this week for the famous LASD Roundup. My good friend, Moon Mullen, is one of the founding members of the LASD Roundup, and the founder LASD Retired association (LASDRetired.org). My hat is off to him, his wife…
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.
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.