Chapter 66: The Risks of Wearing the Badge w/ Glynn Martin

0:00 Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead, brought to you by Dark Cast Network Indie Podcasts with a Twist. Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of the Book of the Dead with Me Today, I have a very special guest. Lisa is not with me, you know, she's usually not when I do these interviews, but I have someone just as good here in her place.

0:47 So today with me, I have Glenn Martin, a retired officer. He is also the executive director of the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation. He is a published true crime author and a frequent guest on true crime documentary and docuseries as an expert. So, Glenn, thank you so much for joining me today. It's a pleasure to have you. Well, thank you a pleasure to be here as well. So there's a few things that I want to talk to you about, some things that we went over in our initial call. But before we get into that, tell me about yourself and your career as an officer. You know, why did you decide to go into law enforcement, How did your career kind of go over the years, you know, what did you work in specifically that kind of thing. Well, it's a it's a great place to start. I am, in fact, retired Los Angeles Police officer, and I remain here working for the nonprofit that is the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation. It's a great honor to have served the department, and I'm equally honored to be taking care of the Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that supports the families of Los Angeles Police Department that are enduring catastrophic circumstances such as you know, term things like cancer and off duty car crashes, and unfortunately, our main function is to take care of the families of officers killed the line of duty. It's a subject that's close to me personally and professionally. One of my police academy classmates, who was also my roommate, was an officer that was shot and killed in nineteen eighty seven.

2:22 In fact, it was just about ten days ago that I attended the parole hearing for his killer, and we've successfully denied parole for him for the fifth time here, So that kind of ties together my work with the police Department and my work with the Foundation. During my career, I had the privilege to work all quarters of the city. The police department is essentially divided up into four different regions. We call them operations bureaus, and I worked in each of those four regions in uniform patrol. I also spent about half my career working undercover, playing closed assignments in Hollywood and North Hollywood. I was a major narcotics there for about three years. I got to do some fascinating, fascinating work during my career with the Los Angeles Police Department, and continue to do the fascinating work with a level of ongoing care for the LAPD families here in my retirement. So very fortunate to've had this lengthy association with the LAPD and very pleased to be here to talk about today. That's amazing.

3:24 It sounds like you've had a very distinguished career. Yeap, Very, I'm very fortunate to have done that kind of work that we did in the time that I did it. And you know, I came straight from college onto the police department here. I was really I'd been accepted to law school, I was headed in that direction, and then just I was pretty tired of the academic stuff. So my father was an active service to the Glendale Police Department, a sizeable suburb of Los Angeles here, and he provided for us, provided for us during his career, and I started looking around and one of my friends contacted me and said, hey, I'm going to apply for the LAPD. Well, he wound up doing a career with the Fire department and I wound up doing my career with the LAPD. So we're both very, very happy with the career paths that we chose. So that was kind of my pathway from came on the department directly from USC, and yeah, that's been my USC, and then all these years around in and around the Los Angeles Police Department. So it's been a great journey that sounds amazing, and I just have to say, you know it, thank you for the service that you've provided for your community members in LA and the like, and your fellow officers and the work you do now. It is wonderful to see someone so dedicated to protecting and serving even after retirement. Well, thank

4:56 you. It's been quite a journey and I look forward to look forward to continue it for another few years here, I bet. So tell me about some of the cases you worked. Are there any that have stuck with you through your career, any that have really kind of taught you something as you've gone on this journey. You know, another wonderful question. And this is one of those jobs where literally no two days are the same, and that being the case, there seems to be a takeaway from pretty much every day that you work a little bit different. Certainly there's some commonality in terms of the cases, the cases that I was personally involved with that are of enduring interest. In nineteen ninety one, as a major narcotics detective, we made two major cocaine seizures and those continue to be the largest seizures in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department. In May of ninety one, we seized forty six hundred pounds of cocaine from an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County.

5:56 It was a case that was spun off from like the Undercut investigation, and the case was developed by one of our undercover officers, for which the rest of the squad did support activities like surveillance and search warrants and all kinds of information gathering and identifying organization members and whatnot. Again, that was May of ninety one, which was an interesting time in the Los Angeles Police Department. This occurred about two months. The seizure was about two months following the release of the videotaped beating of Rodney King. So it was a trending downward time for the Los Angeles Police Department. It was difficult for the department. I think this was the first positive press that we had in the post Rodney King video time, you know. That being said, the important part was we arrested a bunch of folks. We took forty six hundred pounds of cocaine off the street, and we continued to work that case and in in October of ninety one, we seis an additional it was more than five thousand pounds a little farther out of town in Fontana, California. So ultimately we seized about ten thousand pounds of cocaine, if I remember correctly. We had thirteen successful federal prosecutions, and when you make cases like that, it takes some time for them to resolve. I think we finally finished up court in nineteen ninety four, if I remember correctly. So that's the one and then there's you know, the appeals that come up and all of them were denied, and because it was a federal case, the kingpin in the May ninety one case,

7:30 he was sentenced to twenty five years in federal prison, and I think you wound up doing about twenty two and a half years in federal prism. He was a Bolivian national, so a lot of work, absolutely fascinating to try and identify all the people that were involved in it. Many, many forms of investigation were used. All the kilogram packages from the second seizure, or twenty two hundred and ninety eight kilogram packages. In our scientific investigation, folks fingerprinted all six sides of each one of those twenty two hundred and ninety eight packages and successfully tied some folks to handling those particular kilogram packages. So you know, we kind of rolled out everything, rolled out everything on these seizures. The undercover officer spent decades undercover as a major narcotics detective. His accomplishments are truly remarkable and certainly highlighted by this ten thousand pounds seizure of cocaine.

8:28 And as I mentioned that that record within the LAPD still stands to this day. That's amazing, that is it's it's almost mind boggling to think of just the share amount of like you you, it's like the share amount of cocaine. Like it's almost mind boggling. You don't the average person like myself doesn't realize the ins and outs of an investigation like that, or you know, the share level of Condra band you can seize. It's you know, you here, like the daily you know, oh, someone got nailed for you know, a couple of ounces or something like that. So to hear that number is mind boggling for for someone like myself or anyone listening out there, it's like you can't even imagine it, Like I can't even picture what that look like, looks like. Yeah, And I think to a degree it very illustrative of my point about no two days being the same. So my partner and I were the first ones through the door on both of those Both of those cases, the first one, the May nineteen ninety one, was in a was in a residential neighborhood. They referred to them as ranchets, as much as you can refer to anything in Los Angeles as a ranch.

9:41 It was a little bit of property behind a house. We went through the door. The cocaine was stored, it was broken up in several different rooms, and there were some outside the bed of a pickup truck that was garaged. So when you know, you start totaling, you start totaling this stuff up in your head and you're think, well, wow, this is a this is quite something. And then we moved forward to October of ninety one and my partner and I went through the went through the door that was gonna used car lot went through the door at the wee hours of the morning, four or five in the morning. And again, you know, we thought we'd seen everything with the May seizure, and we're looking around and there's even more cocaine at this at this place than the other one. So every time you think you've seen it all in this job, you wind up seeing something else. And it's equally fascinating to me for the same reasons that you stated, you know, and the fact that we you know, you spent you invest months, if not years in these cases, and you avoid detection by the bad guys, and you wind up taking a bunch of people into custody, literally taking tons of cocaine off the street. There's a there's still a level of of wonder that exists with you know, yourself as a police officer or an investigator, even as a major narcotics detective. It was so that one. That one's the that's the big one that's enduring to me.

11:01 Certainly, there's a lot of other stuff that happened, you know, in a lot of murder scenes over the years, and it's a fascinating business when you take a moment to reflect on it. Absolutely, I'm sure, and I'm sure that was so rewarding to know that you took part in really saving lives. You know, you don't know how many countless lives could have been lost from overdosing or just being involved with these people that were dangerous and transporting and distributing these the cocaine. So I can't even imagine how rewarding that would be, just to know that you truly saved so many lives in that moment.

11:45 Yeah, it's, like I said, very very fortunate to have done what we did when we did it. A lot of resources have been redeployed within law enforcement. I don't think there's as many personnel resources assigned to major narcotics investigations is a word. At that period of time, part of it has to do with at least the seeming reduction in the flow of cocaine into the United States. But it was a great time to be a major narcotics detective. I bet I bet so. I guess kind of along those same lines. You know, doing something like that is obviously a risk to your own safety. But tell me about some of the risks involved with being a law enforcement officer that some people may not realize. You know, I think one of the things to do up front is to recognize a term that is bandied about, particularly when it pertains to officers killed in a line of duty.

12:41 You know, I've heard it so many times and it's just so untrue. Well, you know, the officer was on a routine traffic stop, or the officer was performing a routine domestic violence investigation, or the officer was on routine patrol. There is nothing routine about anything that we do, particularly on duty. It's a it's a high risk job. Uniformed officers are the most conspicuous symbol of government, be them, you know, municipal, city police officers, county sheriffs. Anybody that wears a uniform, a badge, carries a gun is a potential target. It's been that way for a lot of years. During the Vietnam era, there was considerable problem with sniping and sniping incidents. You know, bad guys sniping it at uniformed officers. It's a fascinating job. There's an aspect of danger to it that is sometimes under reported, sometimes under sold, definitely undertold. And it's a unique undertaking for those that choose to do this work, for those that dedicate their career to being in uniform specifically, But the threat to the officer doesn't end there.

13:58 We've had we've had a series of officers that were engaged in police action off duty, some compelled to do it, some initiating the police action on their own. But think while the hazard may be a little reduced, it's still present for even off duty officers. And really kind of the theme of all this is you're never really off duty. Particularly if somebody knows you're a police officer or suspects you're a police officer, that threat will remain absolutely And I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about, that this isn't a regular nine to five that you may be out of the precinct. You may be home, you know, having dinner, but you could get a call at any moment where you are back on duty. It's not something that ever really stops. And I think that is a common misconception that people have that oh, you know, once you clock out for the day, that's it, you're done, but you're never really done, completely true, And it's not much in getting a call to it. It's that there's a compelling reason generally in the in the hearts and minds of officers that if they see something criminal going on, particularly something that is going to put a member of the public in immediate risk. So many of our folks have been lost because they intervened in some kind of criminal act that they were witnessing. At least one of our officers was just turned out to be he was a targeted victim of crime and wound up losing his life trying to protect himself, defend himself

15:33 and his girlfriend. Generally, it's an unknown to the officer in a case like that, and the other cases where the officers actively witnessed a criminal act and then intervened or involved themselves in this and then wound up given given their lives and all of it was done to protect somebody, whether it was somebody known to them or persons unknown. And they're terrible cases. In my belief, they hadn't, particularly in our department. They've happened way too way too free. It is a truly terrible thing to to just think about the men and women all over the country that have lost their lives trying to do their job protecting someone else or trying to intervene in some sort of criminal activity.

16:19 It's it's really terrible. It's it's devastating and devastating, not only for their family, but you know, their brothers and sisters in the department that lost someone close to them. Yes, and the impact you know, the old the old adage, time heals heals all wounds. For as much truth as there is to that, there's still plenty of it, particularly in cases where we lose an officer, and the impact on the family, there's the immediate there's the immediate impact of the family, and then for those who you know who have lost a loved one and the suspect has been captured, there's the whole process of going through the judicial system and some in a number of cases that's just a damn near a lifelong commitment. And I'll cite an example here in Los Angeles, they're just wrapped up a trial of a retrial of an officer that was killed forty years ago. Three month trial. Family was present for every every moment of it. It's forty years later, and you think justice has been served, particularly for somebody that was sentenced to death. And you know, here we are forty years later. In my case, it's been thirty six years since my roommate was murdered. The family's still dealing with the fact that, you know, the parole hearings come up from time to time, and they've got to be bothered to provide the authorization for me to appear on their behalf. And there's a depending on the nature of the of

17:53 the case, particularly somebody that's sentenced to life or sentence to receives a sentence a death sentence. There's all kinds of appellate processes. There's an original judicial process that takes years to wind its way through, and then it just seems like there's a fairly fairly continuous picking of the scab of those that have survived these horrific incidences. So that that's another one of those things that just doesn't get the doesn't get the attention that it probably should, you know, the idea, oh well, you know, this officer was lost so many years ago. No, it's in this is a case where we're always going to remember. While the pain may subside, it never completely goes away. Absolutely, and that I agree that that's not something that the average person really understands.

18:41 They look at a case that happened so long ago and they think, you know, well, that's it, it's done, the person is sentenced, you know, the family got justice. But when they have to essentially be re traumatized every few years, You're right, it never really goes away because every few years they have to relive that trauma and the pain of losing their loved one again. And there's always the possibility that one day the appeal won't be denied or they'll be let out, and then they have to deal with that trauma. Yeah, and that's a that's a pretty significant concern, and it's in accompanying that trauma is the concern for their own personal safety.

19:29 Hey, you know, we've kept this guy locked up for forty or forty plus years. Now he's out. You know, I can tell you from very upclose personal experience that the concern is, you know, should somebody get released, are the survivors at risk? Is there going to be some form of attempted vindication for this person being in prison for whatever the number is, thirty, forty to fifty years. Yeah, it's not just the retraumatization. There's another another form of worry that emerges, another form of concern that the surviving members of that family or the surviving members of the officer killed the line of duty. That concern surfaces for them, you know, And it's it's as real as as the day of the loss. Absolutely, And I feel like I keep reiterating it, but it's it is. It's something that people don't think about because they don't if you know, if they've never if they've had the good fortune of not having to deal with it, you know, they don't have to think about that. But someone like yourself that lives through things like that every day, you you understand the long term repercussions. That's correct, and you know, good for you for identifying it's not something that's thought about, because in my experience it hasn't been. And I am equally as pleased that folks don't have to deal with this. They don't have to think about it. You know, that's the good news is about the place

21:02 in which we all live, is so many people don't get exposed to having a friend or family member murdered and everything that goes along with that. We are we are so fortunate for that. So, you know, I understand why not everybody understands, because you know, you understand what you experience, or you try to understand what you experience and experience is there is the great informer here in our in our lives. And I'm just I'm just very glad that so many folks don't I don't have to worry about those kinds of things. Yeah, absolutely, it is. It's the silver lining in that that they don't have to worry. Absolutely. So in our initial conversation, we spoke of off to the officers and you that were killed, and you touch on it briefly specifically Wan Diaz, Russell Couster, Fernando Arroyo's, Fred Early and Tom Williams. Would you mind go over some of what happened with those particular officers and the impact that that's had on there are fellow law enforcement officers.

22:11 Yeah, certainly. And this goes directly to the point that we talked about a few minutes ago about you know, never really being off duty when you're in the law enforcement profession. And you know, when we initially thought about it, it was it came to mind because you know, two of our most recent officers that suffered traumatic law enforcement deaths they were off duty. That was one Diaz back in July of twenty nineteen and Fernando Arroyos in I believe January of twenty twenty two. So two very recent events, you know, and it's the summation summation of it is both of them were both of them were very unsuspecting. In the case of Officer Dias, he had intervened with some graffiti vandals. He was out to visit a food truck, getting a late night snack or a late night dinner. Came across some folks painting up the walls and I believe they were painting with some uh, some gang insignias. In his own neighborhood, a place where he was born and raised, uh spent his entire life, joined the department to serve his neighborhood in the in the neighborhoods that I joined where it was that he grew up and spent his whole life. And when he he intervened, unfortunately he was he was shot and killed. You know when you when you leave the house, you go to look for something to eat late at night. I don't care who you are, you don't you don't go out that door, you don't get in your car, you don't walk up to the food truck thinking that

23:41 this is the last thing you're ever going to do in life. And sadly that's a that was the case with with Officer Diaz, and not entirely dissimilar was the case with with Fernando Arroyos. He was out with a out with a girlfriend looking for a home to purchase, and if I remember right, they parked across the street from the location where the home was for sale, and just in a few feet they got away from their car, they were accosted. I believe it was if the reports are correct, there was a robbery attempt. Somebody was trying to steal the gold necklace that at an officer or royals was was wearing. He sent his girlfriend off to safety and then the officer and engaged with the suspects, and in the exchange of gunfire, officer or royals was lost. So again, something is something as simple as you know, hey, let's go take a look at this house. You know, you get in the car and certainly I remember buying my first house.

24:41 I'm sure he was. He was absolutely positively thrilled. And then that goes not only bad, it turns deadly. Both horrible stories and again, you know, to two young officers, you know, engaged in something that each and every one of us does on very frequent occasions, whether it's going to look for food, you know, shopping for a house, checking out a neighborhood, whatever the case may be. These were two very very well intentioned, undeserving and dedicated folks that we that we lost for no good reason. That's horrific and just senseless. That the way, the manner of which they were killed. For them to just be going about their days doing just the average thing, looking at a house, you know, buying some food.

25:33 For them to have lost their lives is heartbreaking, and you really do feel for their loved ones, and you wonder why, like why something so senseless could have happened, especially in you know, in the case of Wandia's, you know it was over graffiti. I understand it was gang related, but at the end of the day, is you were painting a wall, like why did it have to escalate to something like that? You know, in the sense of the robbery with Fernando Arroyos, you know, it's over a necklace, Like you killed someone over a necklace at the end of the day. And it's horrible that they lost their lives, especially when they were trying to do good for their communities and good for the people that live in those communities. And it really is just it's terrible the risk that law enforcement takes twenty four hours a day, whether they are in uniform or not in uniform. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, sadly, both of them were accompanied by both of them were accompanied by their friends, which means they both witnessed the officers getting shot and killed. Absolutely positively horrific for you know, the folks that were subjected to this. The in the in the case

27:04 of officer of Royals, it's probably worth it's probably worth making a mention the location he was looking at, to look at the home that they were they were looking at. I don't have no idea if they intended to buy it or not. I think they were just in the exploratory phase, if I if what's been reported to me is correct, they were just outside the city of Los Angeles, just into the into the county of La so that the first responders were members of the Sheriff's department who who responded very appropriately. They they gathered up the officer and rendered aid to him while trying to get him to the hospital in time to in time for the medical personnel at the hospital to perform life saving activities. So it was I think it was an It was an extremely smart and extremely risky and extremely daring undertaking by the Sheriff's deputy that responded to that. They realized that the delay in trying to get to fire department personnel there could be fatal, and they took matters into their own hands, and you did it all with the best of intentions. And you know, for all they knew that the shooters could have followed him to the hospital, they took some risks themselves to try and save Officer Arroyos. So it's, you know, on the one hand, it shows just how deadly this business is. On the other hand. It shows just how much good can be done by folks wearing a badge, absolutely and it's commendable that they

28:34 really it's like they didn't really think about the potential consequences. They just acted in effort to save his life. And it really shows that there are truly some wonderful, wonderful officers out there that would truly go above and beyond no matter the risk for anybody, regardless of whether it's a fellow officer or a civilian. And it's a very heartwork warming to hear. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's great to know we we we trained to that kind of stuff and in ninety nine point nine percent of the department will never have to use it, but those folks recognize the importance of it. They followed their training, they did the best that they absolutely could for Officer of Royals here, and it's just it's refreshing from a professional standpoint as well as from a humane standpoint that there's folks out there that are that are that are willing to do this regardless of the of the situation. There's nothing that can be said for the for the risk that they took, for all they knew they were gonna. You know, the bad guys could have rolled up on them at the next stop light and open fire on those guys as well. So appreciate the recognize and appreciate the risk they took in order to try and save one of our officers. And in regards to both of those murders, I believe there was arrest made in Fernando Arroyos's death. But were there any arrest made

30:08 in Wanzez's? Were there were? There were? I believe there were four. They were made some time after, some time after the incident. They were It's not like they took somebody into custody that night, if I remember, it was several weeks. So it was a significant investigative effort to identify those who were involved in to arrest them. And I believe, I believe the disposition of justice on that is still pending. And I believe on Arroyos, I think three have entered polease and there's a I think there's a fourth one still pending adjudication here. But yeah, they were arrest made, and fortunately there were arrest made in both of those cases, which is unlike another one that you asked me about that I'd like to take a moment and talk about, and that's Detective Russ Custer. I worked in Hollywood in nineteen eighty three through nineteen eighty eight, and I'm pretty sure he was in charge of all the homicide investigations during my time there. And that's typically, unfortunately, where i'd run across a Detective Custer is you know, he'd be in charge of a homicide investigation, it a scene somewhere in Hollywood. But he was a highly respected homicide investigators. That's a subspecialty within law enforcement that's done by actually very few people, even in the LAPD. And he was absolutely revered homicide detective and homicide supervisor. And another guy that you know certainly didn't suspect that his trip to to a restaurant up towards the north end of Hollywood was

31:41 going to be his last trip. That is in fact what happened when his evening was interrupted by a restaurant patron that was upset with the manager and left to come back waving a gun. You know, the fellow folks in the restaurant there, and again Officer Custer in you know, off duty and playing clothes, and for us, it was true to form. He was in a he was in a coat and tie, got involved in trying to de escalate the situation by trying to talk the calm the guy down and talk him out of his out of his handgun, and instead, again there was an exchange of gunfire, and in this case, both both Detective Custer and his assailant wound up dead. So again, just one more instance. You know, if you eat up one or two times a week, you're particularly when this case happens. It's one of those one of those things that that impacts you know, all of us that knew about it was you know, gosh, I can't even go to my nearby restaurant without some kind of risk being posed. And you know, I think we've all probably been in many of us have been in restaurants where there's an unhappy patron for one reason or another.

32:51 And you know, now you're now you're thinking about, hey, is this going to go as bad as things went in the rest Custo case or not. His action he shielded everybody else from injury, and nobody else got injured, nobody else got shot. A homicide homicide supervisor trying to enjoy some time away from the station that winds up shielding a whole restaurant full of folks from harm. Very unique part about this is that the homicide detectives that Russ was in charge of had to respond to the scene to handle the murder of their boss. That's terrible. I can't even imagine being the officer that arrives on the scene to investigate. All needs to realize that they not only know the victim, but I've worked with the victim and saw him everyday kind of thing. That must have been so hard for them to be a case to work and I can only imagine how difficult it was trying to separate your emotions from the work that you needed to do. Yeah, no doubt. But everybody that worked in Hollywood, anybody that worked in Hollywood and went to a crimes went to murder scene, they were going to encounter a Russ Custer.

34:02 If you happen to work in the daytime, you know, he was sitting with his his homicide team back in the detective portion of the station, So he was he was well known. Anybody that worked in Hollywood in that era and the Rust Custer era and knew who Russ was. He was a supervisor of many high profile murders. You can imagine, you know, particularly with the passage of time since he was lost in nineteen ninety, all the high profile murders that have happened in Hollywood. He's the guy that was in charge of all those of all the investigations prior to his death, so very very well known in not just the Hollywood ranks, but the LAPD ranks and then the detectives that reported directly to him. It was a life changing event.

34:51 Yeah, it's difficult to describe what that would be like. You know, again, this was another another nighttime hours case. What it was like for those guys to answer their phones at home and find out that they were they were responding to uh, to a restaurant where their boss had just been shot and killed. Hard to fathom what that would do, what that experience was like. It truly truly is have there been any leads on his case? Actually, in the exchange of gunfire, Russ and his assailant both died, So you know, oh, oh, if there is a silver lining to this one, it's it's the fact that there is no There were no judicial proceedings and no appeals and no parole hearings, and but yeah, my mistake, my mistake, I think I was thinking of the was it the fred Early cases unsolved? Yes, yeah, and that's a you know that that's kind of a good lead, and not all of them have the immediate dispositions as did the case with with Detective Custer fred Early to this day. Again, he was an off duty officer out on the West side of Los Angeles and in the early morning hours in nineteen I believe in September of nineteen seventy two, he came across what he believed was a burglary in progress, you know, and it being nineteen seventy two and him doing the thing that you've

36:21 got a way as an off duty officer, you know, is it better for me to intervene or is it better for me just to be the best witness that I can. So with this commercial burglary essentially in progress, an officer Early went to a paid telephone to call the police department and get some resources out there, have some officers respond, maybe get a helicopter overhead. You know, all the kinds of things that run through your head, you know. Essentially, he was trying to be that good witness you know, hey, I need to get that help out there. And while he was on the payphone calling us into the department, he was a it was confronted by the burglary suspects here. You know, it was a unfortunately, it was a deadly it was a deadly outcome. You know. He wound up wound up being confronted by the suspects and foot pursuit ensued wherein Officer Early was shot by one of the suspects. Aid was rendered to Officer Early taken to the hospital, spent a considerable period of the time in the hospital. Ultimately was released, but perish from his wounds about six months after the incident.

37:30 Again, this is the case of trying to do something right. You know. It was four or four point thirty in the morning when he realized that there was a drug store that was being burgerized and he wanted to take some action on it. There is no legal reason, there is no binding reason for him to be involved. He could have just kept on his way. He could have driven to the station and said, hey, you might want to get somebody over the drug store because I think it's been broken into. He had a number of options, and he chose the option of doing the right thing. You know, he went to a payphone, he tried to get he tried to get police out there to arrest those involved in the burglary, and things just didn't work out. You know, he made a he made a conscious decision to go in foot pursuit. And you know, our department and uniform patrol generally works two officers to a car in one of the cardinal rules of our of our two officer operation is you never separate from your partner. In this case, he didn't have a partner. Going in foot pursuit by yourself is unwanted by policy here within the police department and sometimes unwise.

38:39 But still Officer Early felt compelled, thought he was doing the right thing, and unfortunately paid for it with his life. Another another very very committed and dedicated officer that we lost try to keep his community safe and trying to do it well. He wasn't on the clock. It's so sad to know that he really was, as you said, just trying to do the right thing and in pursuing these burglars, and he lost his life. And it's it's even more sad to know that his case is still unsolved and his loved ones have never gotten justice, absolutely correct, and although it's unsolved, it's still a case. You know, that case happened in the West Los Angeles area. Still have some very talented folks that are rovere Homicide Division that are assigned to this case and they follow up on any kind of information that comes in. So it's although it's been it's been a lot of years, fifty plus years here still trying to find some justice for the loss of the murder of officer early in the case of Tom Williams. What happened with that case, you know, again another another duty thing and particularly particularly awful set of circumstances. None of these cases are pleasing, every every single one of them is absolutely awful. But there's an anniversary coming up here about eight days from

40:14 now, the murder of Detective Tom Williams Halloween of nineteen eighty five, after work, Detective Williams is going to pick up his son at school. While he's in the process of picking up his son, he is a he is shot. Something is simple and you know, no doubt is pleasing, you know, I know, picking my kids up after a hard day at work was a was an absolute joy and I can't imagine what that would would have looked like. So at the time, Detective Williams was due to testify in a robbery case. And whether they laid and wait for him or followed him to his son's school, don't I don't recall. At this point the Detective Williams was going to pick up son when gunfire erupted, and again doing the right thing, Detective Williams shielded his son from the direction on which the gunfire was coming and managed to manage to save his son, but likewise was shot and killed in front of his in front of his little boy. Just you know, another terrible, terrible, terrible occurrence here. And I recall three people were ultimately arrested, and I believe they all remained imprisoned here. There will be thirty thirty eight years here in a couple of days. So another one of those cases. And again you know the thoughts going through your head.

41:42 Hey, this is this is what I got to do today. I come to work, I got to work on this case. I got to work on this case. And then you know, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm done and I'm going to go pick up my son at school. I'll look forward to doing his homework with him, or you know, having dinner with him, whatever the case was, that that unfortunate evening and not you know, not even having the remote, the most remote thought that you are going to get fired upon and shot and killed in front of your son. It's a he got He got killed for concern over what it was that he was going to say in court during the solution of another case that had come across his desk. There's just no you know, there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. This one, for me, is particularly particularly grievous and particularly heinous. Whether they followed him, they knew his son was there, if they laid you know, if they laid in wait for him outside the school. You know, how horrific can you be as a human being shoot and kill somebody's father right in front of their son. Absolutely, I I can't. It's it's like the the audacity to take a man's life in general, but to take his life in front of his child's knowing that you've not only taken this child's father away, but you have sentenced this child to a lifetime of heartache because their father is gone, and their father

43:16 was taken in such a horrific manner over a trial and something that he may or may not say, when you know, at the end of the day, him testifying is just his job. It is. It is just his job. And you know, here here in Los Angeles, so many, so many cases plead out. It's I don't want to say it's rare, but it's infrequent that you wind up in trial. You know, at some point, you know, the offender realizes that they're they're better off not facing trial. So whoever this was made a cognizant choice to take this to trial, to think that they you know, and nobody wants to deny them their civil rights, their constitutional rights, whatever whatever it want to be. Everybody has the constitutional right to face their accusers, to elect a trial. There's a cognizant choice here that had they chosen to plead out, Tom Williams still be here with us. But somebody was so fearful of his testimony, they were so afraid of going to prison they chose not to. They chose not to plete out. Not only they choose not to plete out, either they conspired with or their associates decided that the good thing to do was to eliminate the witness. The case was going to go on one way or the other.

44:40 So it's just you know, wrongheaded thinking. But you know, these are cop killers that you're talking about, I don't expect them to think right. But there were just so many other ways that this could have turned out, where you know, Detective Williams would have finished out his very meaningful career with the police department and enjoyed watching his son grow up and enjoying the spoils of being being a parent. But people, you know, people made some very lethal choices. And for me on the professional end, you don't hear much about, you know, the officers that you lose engaged in police action although they're off duty, and this is this is one of those. This is kind of the headline case. And in my estimation, these kinds of things. You know, Hey, the guy was picking his son up from school. We consider school safe zones. We try and make them safe zones.

45:30 And the only reason that the son was safe was because his father's shielded him from the gunfire. He truly died a hero, he truly did. He died saving his son, protecting his son and you know, it's a small consolation to know that he did that, he didn't die in vain. He he saved the life of his son, which again, it's just it's it's very heartbreaking to hear. It's it's heartbreaking to hear about all of these men that were killed, especially to know that they were killed just trying to live their life outside of the station. And it's an unfortunate reality that many officers have lost their lives just trying to do their day to day activities outside of work. In regards to that, Before we finish this, tell me a little bit more about the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation and the work that it does to help the families of these fallen officers. Yeah, the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation, we began in nineteen seventy two, and our primary goal back then was to care for the surviving families of officers killed on the line of duty. And we've done that instantly and continuously since nineteen seventy two.

47:02 And how we do that is we take care of funeral expenses and then after after that we continue our support. It's kind of a continuum of care following the loss for the minor dependent children. We send holiday checks to the children until they qualify for our educational benefits, which we have a pretty substantial set aside for the college educations of surviving minor dependents of not just officers kill the line of duty. Over time, we've expanded it to include active duty members of the police department. So the grant levels very based online and duty versus active duty. But we support all the folks that we lose in active service to the Los Angeles Police Department and the many and diverse communities that LAPD personnel serve. We've also got another categor glory of UH for catastrophic injury or illness. Cancer is. Cancer has impacted the department pretty significantly here in recent years. And we're human beings and we're subject to that as well. You know, the factors of causation don't really matter to us, but that's that's kind of our number one, number one reason that we're losing active duty members of the department right now. So UH And as you know, and I think everybody knows, many many cancer cases linger and in these and in the cases where we've got we've got department members that are are suffering or enduring the

48:36 enduring cancer, their time away from the department gets depleted in uh, they're at risk of losing their benefits. And we've got a grant category or where we help with the catastrophic injury or illness. You know, probably the two the two main contributors. You know, certainly COVID was not kind of this police department. We had a lot of folks with lengthy hospital stays behind COVID that we assisted with the recession there seeming recession of COVID here, it's kind of cancer and crashes, car crashes and cancer where our folks get injured and they're away from work for a period of time. That creates a financial hardshipt form and we're able to help out with that as well. And then the final thing we do that we're very proud of. One of our directors is a recently retired dean from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, and he oversees a merit based scholarship program for college bound seniors of LAPD personnel. So we've been from our humble beginnings of just try and do to support the families of those very few that are killed in the line of duty. We've been able to expand our services in our reach within the police department, and you know, we're fortunate to operate as a five O one C three nonprofit organization.

49:55 I'm very proud of the work that we've done over these fifty one plays years to support the men and women that protect and serve the great city of la That's amazing to hear. Just to know that these officers and their families are taken care of by the Foundation is truly wonderful to hear. And to know that regardless of whether these officers have lost their lives or they are sick, or they've been injured in some critical way, that their family members and their children are going to be taken care of and that they're going to be okay regardless because of the work that the Foundation does. So that is that is truly amazing to hear. Well, yeah, thank you. We're very very pleased, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our website l A p m F dot org. L A p m F dot org. And we're again, we're very very fortunate to do what we do and we're pretty unique in the in the ranks of all the law enforcement of the country by putting all these elements under one roof in order to better support the better support to Los Angeles Place Department. Absolutely, and that link will be down below so you guys can check out the website and all of the work that they do. I know I have listeners in California, so definitely check it out.

51:21 I urge you to Glenn has been It has been absolutely wonderful having you on. This has been a wonderful conversation and I thank you for joining me today at Courtney. It was wonderful talking to you today. I know it's a tough subject and you know it's tough on this end as well, So thank you for your time and thank you for thank you for having me. Oh of course, of course. So as always, guys, you can check out the links down below for all of the good stuff. And Lisa, we'll be back in the next one, I promise. But as she always likes to say, have a wonderful leak and we will see you guys next week for another chapter of the Book of the Dead. Bye, guys, thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead, and don't forget that you can always connect with us on Instagram, you can connect with us on Twitter, and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon. We also have a merch store as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get merch hand you're on by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week and just remember please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye b