Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey

Summary

Cleared Hot Podcast Episode 383: Garrett Maxey

Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Garrett Maxey, Special Victims Unit Detective
Release Date: April 21, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 383 of "Cleared Hot," host Andy Stumpf welcomes Garrett Maxey, a seasoned Special Victims Unit detective with over 12 years of experience in law enforcement, specializing in Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) in Idaho. This episode delves into the harrowing realities of combating the darkest facets of online crimes, the emotional and psychological burdens placed on law enforcement officers, and the critical conversations parents must have to safeguard their children.

---

Garrett Maxey’s Journey into Law Enforcement

[13:06] Garrett Maxey:
"Growing up in Southern California, my dad was a deputy with LA County Sheriffs. And, I mean, that's just what I wanted to do."

Garrett shares his early inspiration drawn from his father's career in law enforcement. Despite his initial aspirations to work on proactive, high-adrenaline cases involving drugs and guns, Garrett's path took a pivotal turn towards tackling Internet Crimes Against Children, driven by a deep-seated desire to protect the most vulnerable.

---

Challenges Within Law Enforcement

Andy Stumpf:
"The culture around mental health...it has to be changing." [131:30]

Garrett discusses the prevalent mental health challenges faced by officers, emphasizing the stigma that often prevents them from seeking necessary support. He highlights the importance of transforming the internal culture to better address and support the emotional well-being of law enforcement personnel.

---

Special Victims Unit and ICAC: Roles and Responsibilities

[40:05] Garrett Maxey:
"I'd say a lot of it was you're... you don't want to be that guy who's stuck on a, on a shift, killer of a call."

Transitioning from general patrol duties to the Special Victims Unit, Garrett elaborates on the intensive nature of ICAC work. This role involves investigating severe crimes such as child pornography and online enticement, requiring officers to confront unimaginable atrocities regularly.

---

Case Studies and Insights

[58:13] Garrett Maxey:
"I'm not just. Yeah, man, it was all bad. It was all bad." [72:10]

Garrett recounts specific cases that underscore the disturbing extent of online child exploitation. One notable case involved an uncle grooming his niece using burner phones and social media platforms, leading to a conviction that showcased the complexities of prosecuting such crimes.

---

Impact on Officers: Emotional Toll

[77:07] Garrett Maxey:
"I just couldn't function, man. I couldn't function." [90:35]

The emotional burdens of handling severe cases take a significant toll on officers. Garrett shares his personal struggle with processing the horrific material he encounters, ultimately leading him to step away from ICAC duties to preserve his mental health and family well-being.

---

Technological Factors: Dark Web and Encryption

[85:27] Garrett Maxey:
"And I have a hard time believing that those two numbers just aren't related..." [111:24]

The evolution of technology, particularly the Dark Web and advanced encryption methods, poses substantial challenges in tracking and apprehending predators. Garrett emphasizes that while technology offers anonymity to offenders, dedicated law enforcement efforts gradually uncover their activities through meticulous investigation and technological advancements.

---

Advice for Parents: Protecting Your Children

[116:22] Garrett Maxey:
"Conversations with your kids...keep drilling that into their head." [120:22]

Garrett stresses the importance of open communication between parents and children regarding online safety. He advises parents to:

• Engage in Conversations: Regularly discuss the dangers of online interactions and the significance of maintaining privacy.

• Monitor Technology Use: Be aware of their children's online activities, including the use of burner phones or secretive apps.

• Educate on Consent and Boundaries: Ensure children understand the importance of personal boundaries and recognize inappropriate behavior.

[122:26] Garrett Maxey:
"We have to be aware that it's not okay, and be aware that you can come and talk to me about anything." [122:26]

Garrett encourages parents to foster an environment where children feel comfortable reporting any suspicious or uncomfortable interactions without fear of judgment or repercussions.

---

Conclusion: The Uphill Battle and Future Outlook

[135:20] Garrett Maxey:
"It's an uphill battle for sure." [141:35]

As the episode concludes, Garrett reflects on the persistent and evolving nature of online child exploitation. He underscores the necessity for continuous adaptation in law enforcement strategies and the critical role of community awareness and parental vigilance in combating these heinous crimes.

[122:22] Andy Stumpf:
"But stranger danger. I mean, most people believe that." [124:43]

Andy reinforces the message that while the internet has introduced new threats, the fundamental need for vigilance and open communication within families remains paramount.

---

Key Takeaways

• Emotional Resilience: Law enforcement officers dealing with severe online crimes require robust mental health support systems.

• Technological Challenges: Advanced technologies like the Dark Web complicate investigations but do not make apprehending offenders impossible.

• Parental Responsibility: Proactive and open dialogues about online safety can significantly reduce the risk of children becoming victims.

• Community Collaboration: Effective law enforcement efforts depend on community support, timely reporting, and collaborative strategies to tackle evolving threats.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Garrett Maxey [13:06]:
  "Growing up in Southern California, my dad was a deputy with LA County Sheriffs. And, I mean, that's just what I wanted to do."

• Andy Stumpf [131:30]:
  "The culture around mental health...it has to be changing."

• Garrett Maxey [40:05]:
  "I'd say a lot of it was you're... you don't want to be that guy who's stuck on a, on a shift, killer of a call."

• Garrett Maxey [77:07]:
  "I just couldn't function, man. I couldn't function."

• Garrett Maxey [120:22]:
  "Conversations with your kids...keep drilling that into their head."

---

This episode of "Cleared Hot" offers a profound glimpse into the harrowing work of detectives like Garrett Maxey who confront the darkest aspects of online child exploitation. It underscores the indispensable role of mental health support for officers and the critical responsibility parents hold in safeguarding their children in an increasingly digital world.

Transcript

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[Andy Stumpf]

Welcome back everybody, and good morning. Today's episode, probably a, you know, a darker topic than most people maybe want to start their Monday with, but I think it's incredibly important. I never shy away from these topics. I think they're critical. I think we have to have these conversations and I'm going to add to that. I think we have to talk about the burden that this type of occupation places on the individuals. I'm not so sure, actually. I'm positive it's not for everybody. And I and I think there's a maximum exposure. My guest today is Garrett Maxey. He is a Special Victims Unit detective, been in law enforcement for 12 years in the Idaho area jails patrol, major crimes. And what we talked a lot about was his time in icac, Internet crimes, attention against children. To me, this is the worst of the worst. What these people are exposed to and I mean those who are trying to stop these individuals, what they're exposed to is unbelievable. I don't even have the vocabulary for the behaviors and activities of those that they are after. So we talk a lot about that, but we also talk a lot about, like I mentioned in the intro, the burden and cost that it places on people who have to knowingly go into this world. Somebody has to. We have to have an ability to find these people where they are. And the people that do that, man, they get nothing but respect for me. And I'll never stop talking about this topic because, I mean, people who listen to the podcast understand the potato peeler theory that I have. Still waiting for a federal, state, local agency to reach out for me. I'll donate my services, but I don't know if that call will ever come. Let's get into the episode, but before that, stick with me. Give me 90 seconds. Let's pay the bills. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Let's head over right now to their website. Well, it Just switched on me first thing I'm seeing. And actually this is probably what I'll focus on for today. Don't sleep on the coffee club subscription. So there's two versions. The first one that's up on this rotating banner is the. I'll call it the traditional coffee club subscription. And right now you can get 30% off. When you start a coffee subscription. You can use the code COFFEE30 all one word. The last two 30 are numbers versus letters. Coffee, normal spelling you are going to get. It's actually really cool. You get more than coffee. The coffee club. They are going to get offers from other brands that are associated with Black Rifle. I've actually worked with a few of them to get them introduct introduced into that. But you can pick whatever coffee you want, get it delivered where you want on the. On the cadence that you want to. But there is another subscription and this one is really cool. Evan was posting about this. Evan and Logan. I oftentimes see them posting about the new ECS or exclusive coffee club subscription that comes out. It's a single bag per month, but it's a really curated experience. The. The art on the bags is really cool. The beans, man, they. It's. It's wild. I am not somebody who would ever be paid to give you a flavor profile of what coffee tastes like, but it really is all over the place in a good way. It's just a different type of experience. Don't sleep on that stuff. Those two subscriptions are pretty cool. I am a member of both of those and I appreciate both for what they are. I get the normal beans and then the exclusive ones as well. Looks like they also have rounds. For those of you. I'm gonna call those K cups. If I'm wrong in that. I don't know, I don't drink coffee this way. Cause I don't hate myself. Scrolling down the page again, if you're gonna join that coffee club subscription, just take this rotating or this slider bar. You can go all the way to light to extra dark. You can see everything that they have to offer here. Here's an example right here of this cover art that I'm talking about. Elixir. I'm not even saying that word, but the V, that's a really cool bag. There's apparel, all the other stuff that I've talked about before focusing it on the coffee club subscriptions. Take the work out of getting your coffee, have it delivered to you. And if you have somebody who's a total coffee nerd, sign them up for that ecs. You will not regret it. All of that can be accessed through blackrifflecoffee.com okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south.

[Garrett Maxey]

West of the smoke.

[Andy Stumpf]

West of the smoke. Okay, copy.

[Garrett Maxey]

West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, wait, baby, give it to me. I did it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Get clear.

[Garrett Maxey]

Hot campaign. Clear not. How often do you hear that? Those are your favorite episodes, though, with your. With your dad?

[Andy Stumpf]

Every day. And the problem is he hears it too.

[Garrett Maxey]

I was just gonna say, does he hear it? And.

[Andy Stumpf]

God, he wants to do merchandise. He has started. Were you there when he was telling. I think he was telling Leah. Oh, yeah, Flintlock. That's what everybody calls me. And I said to him, what? Yeah, because I called that episode Flintlock Friday. Because that was the technology that was current when he was young. He goes, yeah, everybody calls me Flintlock. And I said, dad, not a single person anywhere is calling you Flintlock. And he says, that's not what I heard. And I'll. Where did you hear that from? And he goes, you know, just the people. Oh, yeah, that dude tried to tell me. So did he follow you, Michael?

[Garrett Maxey]

No.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay, so he did a recent episode, we were talking about Instagram, okay? Two days later, my sister hits me up over text and says, I think somebody is pretending to be dad on Instagram because I just got this essentially non filled out account, but the name was Von Stumpf, and it just followed me. So we need to check to see if somebody is, you know, pretending to be dad online. This is the same time period he got his new phone. Okay, so of which he needs fucking help. So I'm over there and I was going to try to sneak Life360 on there so I could track him and his wife. He is now agreeing that it's probably a good idea that it's on there. Okay, so when we find them in a park somewhere lost, we can go get them. I'm scrolling through the apps and I see the Instagram app on there. I'm like, click on it. Von Stumpf. All lowercase, no profile picture, 0 posts following 7 different versions of my name, none of which is the correct account. And my sister. So I started asking him about it. Dad, why'd you download Instagram? He's like, I didn't. And his wife starts chiming in. You know, he doesn't know how to do that. There's no way he did it. Like, do you think a fucking mouse came in here and started typing? You know, downloading Instagram. Finally, he admits. He's like, well, I was curious what it was, and I just started. I just started pushing buttons. I didn't know what I was doing. Like, you randomly. This is the, you know, the theory that if you gave a fleet of monkeys a typewriter, they would have shake. They would at some point produce Shakespeare's greatest works.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

So random. He claims he created an account with his name, which is V A U G H N. A lot of just people just put Vaughn V O N. And I'm just. I can't. For whatever reason, he is emotionally unwilling to admit that he just created an Instagram account. I did. I think I did have him follow you, or I did that for him. So you might have a Von Stone following you.

[Garrett Maxey]

Okay, maybe I haven't seen it, but I'll check.

[Andy Stumpf]

The next day, he just. He's like, I don't know how to use this thing. I just push buttons. So my sister texts me a picture of his feet that he had sent to her accidentally while trying to text her, the camera icon popped up, captured a picture of his feet, and he's just like, I didn't know how to get off the screen, so I just kept hitting the arrow button till it went away. So. And then here's the thing. Yeah, he's fantastic on the show, but this is the shit I have to deal with off of the show. Or, you know, we're at dinner. You know, recently Leah had me telling the story about when I flushed an orange down the toilet when I was young. We're at dinner the other night, and he is trying to convince people that I did that when I was 13. Meanwhile, where we lived at that time, I couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. So he's with fingernails, holding onto fucking reality.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And, yeah, Shady Acres. Shady Acres is the name of the home I'm gonna put him in. Or at least that's the name of the home I tell him I'm gonna put him in. And my sister and I have agreed that. Yeah, we're just going to keep doing that until he believes it.

[Garrett Maxey]

Okay, that's fair.

[Andy Stumpf]

He's the worst. And that'll be us one day.

[Garrett Maxey]

To our kids. Exactly. And then we're going to miss that from our dads and then our kids. Exactly. We'll be driving them nuts. And.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. Michael, get on now and follow Von Stump. See if you can find it.

[Garrett Maxey]

Find them.

[Andy Stumpf]

V A U G H N S T Anybody who hears this, hop on there and give my dad, here it is.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you notice how the profile is completely not set up?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, no posts, no post, no profile picture.

[Andy Stumpf]

Because he says, well, what do you do with it? What do you put on there? How does this work? And I said, these are questions you could have asked before you opened this account. I said, most of the time, people. I said, if you follow people, you kind of get to see what they post. It's a curated collection of what people? It's. What I said was it's mostly pictures. And he's like, yeah, yeah, I can take pictures.

[Garrett Maxey]

I'm like, fuck of your feet.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm telling you, there's a good chance that he would have posted that picture by accident and not known it. And so, yeah, for all the people out there who keep encouraging my dad, at some point you're gonna get what you asked for and you may not like it.

[Garrett Maxey]

I want to see that account get to, like, a million followers, though.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think it'll ever get to a million. Did you follow Michael? I did.

[Garrett Maxey]

So he's probably hate if all the fake Andy Stump profiles following back, though. What do you think?

[Andy Stumpf]

Maybe it was Stumpf. Andy. Andy Stumpf. I mean, I. I don't. And again, just pushing buttons. Right. Just accidentally followed five different incorrect versions of my username.

[Garrett Maxey]

And how many other people is he following, though? Just those. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And my sister and I'll get him to follow Michael. And then Michael, I'm gonna. You know what? I'm gonna let you mentor him.

[Garrett Maxey]

No.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

I do not get paid enough for that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Nobody does. It wouldn't matter if I paid you in gold bars. It's not enough. Send them a DM and see what he.

[Garrett Maxey]

No, I don't think you would even know that that happened.

[Andy Stumpf]

The app, the icon itself is not even on any of the home screens, so it's, you know, as you swipe to the right, they're clustered. First off, I don't know if he even knows how to do that, but I'm pretty sure he'll never be able to find it again. But I don't know. He might have four years left before he heads into Shady Acres, so I don't know. What do you think, Michael? Should we just lean into his social presence? Yes.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

What would you recommend as his profile picture of Santa Claus?

[Garrett Maxey]

The Playgirl photo.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, you used to work Internet Crimes against Children. How does a group rugby photo from the 1920s where they're not wearing anything but their cleats. I don't know if that is necessarily safe for Internet consumption. The picture would be very small on the Instagram profile picture, but that's what it is.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Now, are we talking, like, from head to toe? The only thing they're wearing is cleats. Yeah. See, that's rough. I think it might go against community guidelines.

[Andy Stumpf]

Illegal, probably not the amount of pubic hair. Did you notice that, Michael? Because I know you surveyed that picture closely.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You were pinching him. Yeah. Did you notice that, though?

[Garrett Maxey]

I did, unfortunately, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Heavy, heavy, heavy.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, people, live your life however you want to. I'm not saying you should be a hairless cat, but, you know, but also.

[Garrett Maxey]

If it's the 1920s and you're trying to shave.

[Andy Stumpf]

It wasn't actually the 20s, but I just. That's when I tell him he was born.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, gotcha, Gotcha.

[Andy Stumpf]

He's old as shit.

[Garrett Maxey]

Even still, you're talking, like, you know, safety razor, where you got to put the blade in and crank it. Trying to shave down there with that has got to be a nightmare.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, yeah. I think they have developed electricity, like, in his early 20s, but. Oh, well. Yeah. So point being, welcome to the show and try to keep the mic about a fist away. I mean, I know what I want to talk about. I don't want to. I want to talk about the type of casework that you do.

[Garrett Maxey]

How did you.

[Andy Stumpf]

How did you find your way into law enforcement?

[Garrett Maxey]

So, growing up in Southern California, my dad was a deputy with LA County Sheriffs. And, I mean, that's just what I wanted to do.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

You know, my dad was somebody like.

[Andy Stumpf]

Why do you go sheriff over pd? I bet you there's a nice, potentially friendly slash unfriendly rivalry between the two.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Oh, 100. And I know you've had at least one LAPD copper in here or retired LAPD copper, but there's definitely that friendly, unfriendly rivalry. Why he went sheriffs, you know, I'm not sure off top of my head, I think.

[Andy Stumpf]

What about his family before him? Were they law enforcement?

[Garrett Maxey]

No.

[Andy Stumpf]

So he was the first into the first. Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. My grandfather did, like, duct work for H VAC Systems, and then. Yeah. My dad.

[Andy Stumpf]

Less likely to get shot.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, a lot less likely. A lot less likely. Now, my pop got into it, and I. He wouldn't have done well in the trades, I don't think. It's not his personality. Not his personality. He definitely had a personality for law enforcement.

[Andy Stumpf]

How long do you do?

[Garrett Maxey]

Gosh, he did 24, 25 years. He just retired a Couple years ago.

[Andy Stumpf]

How do they abbreviate it?

[Garrett Maxey]

LASO used to be LA County Sheriff's Office. That changed, gosh, in the 90s, I think. Early 2000s.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do they have a separate academy from the PD guys? Yes, of course they do.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That could have nothing to do with the rivalry.

[Garrett Maxey]

You know, and. And listen, I'll say this. I. I love. I love the LAPD guys, you know, but we chase our bad guys down to them, they chase theirs up to us. And, you know, and, you know, we were talking about the helicopter side of things, right? Yeah, they've came. LAPD's copters are coming back to us a ton of times when our Arrow units weren't able to make it to us. So, yeah, there's a friendly rivalry. It's a. It's healthy. It's still ongoing.

[Andy Stumpf]

Who has the longer academy?

[Garrett Maxey]

So I think the academy is dictated by California Post.

[Andy Stumpf]

Who has the better academy?

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, LA County, Without a doubt. Without a doubt. I have it on good authority.

[Andy Stumpf]

Identical curriculum and length.

[Garrett Maxey]

Here's. Here's the thing, though. And. And I've talked to folks from lapd, and they've got little stress cards. If they're feeling a little too stressed, they can just hold up their.

[Andy Stumpf]

No, they don't.

[Garrett Maxey]

I don't know, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

There was a time in the military where those existed. I don't know what they've done with them, but it was a TTO card. A training timeout.

[Garrett Maxey]

A training timeout card. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Which is really reflective of a combat environment. You can really use those and your enemy will. Certainly when you are emotionally at your brink.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes. That's when they.

[Andy Stumpf]

Legitimately, though. I remember hearing about that trading timeout cards.

[Garrett Maxey]

Was that before or after your time?

[Andy Stumpf]

It was kind of in the middle, actually.

[Garrett Maxey]

Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. And again, I'm. I heard that 15th hand from people who, you know, had new people who were going through it. So there was probably some validity to it, and I will admit, some of that was probably blown well out of proportion.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. And there's that whole. You know, I'm sure it's the same in the military, definitely in law enforcement and fire and all that, where the generation before us had it so much worse, and the generation before them, they were tougher and had it worse and so on and so forth. So.

[Andy Stumpf]

So lapd, laso, lafd.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do they ever. Just like LAPD and the fire department ever gang up and harass the sheriff? Do you guys ever gang up with the fire department and harass. Ask the pd, because that gets tough when there's three entities on scene.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you know what all. You know what lapd, LASO, and the fire Department all have in common? They all wanted to be firefighters.

[Garrett Maxey]

See, I knew it was going to go. My, my father in law has retired, LA City Fire. And the amount of times I've heard that over the past 15 years or so.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And it's, it's untrue every single time.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think that's the case. I've heard that the LA Fire Department secures the scene for you guys and then you guys go in.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. So not quite. Generally speaking, they might have used the.

[Andy Stumpf]

Term second responders for your outfit.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. So again, just so you know, if.

[Andy Stumpf]

There was a firefighter sitting here, I'd be using exactly the same thing, but just the other side of the coin.

[Garrett Maxey]

No. So 100. And again, you want to talk about a friendly rivalry as cops and firefighters and can't do. Yeah. You know, we can't do what we do without the fire department and they can't do what they do without us.

[Andy Stumpf]

And their mustaches are unbelievable.

[Garrett Maxey]

They are, they are. That comes from an old tradition, I'm told for trying to save themselves from smoke. They could just shove their whiskers up their nose.

[Andy Stumpf]

No, that's not how that works.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's not, it's not. But if it's, you know, 1905 and that's the best you got, you might.

[Andy Stumpf]

Actually believe it worked. If that was 1905.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. All right. Nowadays. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so.

[Andy Stumpf]

No. It's an interesting crew. My brother in law is a San Diego city fire captain and actually this episode won't come out probably for almost a month actually because we have a few backlog. But next week we'll be in Canada snowboarding with them. And a good amount of them are firefighters.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

If one of the stereotypes that almost always holds true is their mustaches.

[Garrett Maxey]

100%, it's, it's true.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's like department wide, east coast, west coast, it doesn't matter. There's gonna be a guy who is a firefighter. Just dick, broom, model, like just chisel.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what the standards are for every single fire department. Right. But they're, they're usually, you know, well past the crease of the lip.

[Andy Stumpf]

100%.

[Garrett Maxey]

They're past like, you can't see their front teeth sometimes.

[Andy Stumpf]

I've seen it wrap under the chin, which I don't know how that works with a seal on a mask. And I don't care.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's not, it's not my problem. Shooter's choice. And you can always tell a cops mustache, right? Because it's kind of like that, that 70s gay porno type mustache where it's a little creepy. It is.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Because those are the grooming standards. You can't go past the crease of the lip and it's got to stay, you know, it's a little creepy.

[Andy Stumpf]

And you guys walk up to cars and ask people questions.

[Garrett Maxey]

I. You can ask my wife about this. I did try the whole mustache thing after my kid was born.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did she not like it?

[Garrett Maxey]

She hated it. Yeah, she hated it. And I said, this is, you know, I'm a dad now and I have to do this. But working sex crimes with that mustache is risky business.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. You might end up in a mug shot yourself by accident.

[Garrett Maxey]

That's the thing. Great for undercover work, but God, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. So your pops. What a crazy area. Yeah. I was telling you on the walk over, I don't think people realize how active and stretched then law enforcement is there and to include myself. So I was super fortunate. I happened to be in the area for a speech and a guy from the air division reached out.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Offered me a ride along. So I'm just sitting in the back. I mean it's like I love rhetorical questions when people ask them to me, hey, do you want to ride in the back of our LAPD helicopter? Yes, yes I do.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

So. And it was amazing. Like their facility was cool. The number of helicopters they have were cool. And I don't know the exact number of radios. I'm going to guess it was something along. Actually probably wasn't radios, just frequencies. Five freaks. But they certainly were on lapd. I know for a fact they were on the sheriff's office frequency as well. Probably fire. There was one frequency or channel that you could use to reach out directly to them and it would beep at them. And I think there was another one in the three hours that we were flying. I am not joking. There may have been a total combined time of 10 minutes where one of those radios was not active and that helicopter was just all over the place. And you know, people talk a lot about the gun laws in California. Almost every one of those calls was not necessarily gun violence, but kind of gun violence adjacent.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Person with a gun call.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. Or you know, they would find it. Or they hey. They found a magazine. Or hey. And they're looking and so. And it was. It was interesting. It was really cool to see how a little bit similar to us overseas, you can task. Shed stuff up because they have a better view. So they would work on coordination. You know, they were actually doing an aerial. They had surrounded a house, but they had him get on the. It must have been a very loud speaker, and basically tell him to come out. I don't know how you don't have an entire block of people coming out of their home when that thing's circling overhead. Like, I get that the light. The eye of God was on the house, but that thing was so loud, you could have heard it for blocks. It's just people just walking out with it.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. I mean, you're talking. The speaker on the helicopter. Yes. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, the helicopters are loud. That speaker was louder.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And they're. And like I said, they're orbiting at a couple hundred feet. I don't know how you don't have everybody in an entire city block walking out with their arms up.

[Garrett Maxey]

Well, everybody. I imagine maybe in your house, you hear something, maybe you can't make it out. So we've had containments where, you know, canines coming out. They're gonna walk the dog. And the warnings come over the speaker like, hey, the dog's coming out. If you come out of your house, you're gonna get bit.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And people. All they hear is, they come out of their house. I'm out of my house. Go check out. And you're like, go back in.

[Andy Stumpf]

Those guys were working it, though. It was cool to see. It was cool to see. And you could tell that the officers on the ground appreciated when they showed up overhead.

[Garrett Maxey]

Absolutely.

[Andy Stumpf]

Because they actually, I think on almost every. They would kind of loiter, and then when they would hear something or get called, they would haul ass. And obviously, without having to hit stop signs. And they can just go straight as opposed to zigzagging.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

But I think almost every time, if not every time, the units on the ground specifically said thank you, which is cool, you can tell that they appreciated it being overhead.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, it's like a super small gesture.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But. And it would be really easy to not say. And so the fact that they went out of the way to say that, I'm like, all right. These guys, they have a good relationship.

[Garrett Maxey]

And you. You heard firsthand, like, how precious radio time is there, because the radio is going constantly. So that, like, a genuine thank you to the helicopter pilots. If there's any of them listening yeah, you got. I mean, they know it. They're lifesavers. Yeah. And, yeah, man, it's. It's wild. And with. With that area being as big as it is, because LA itself, I could be wrong here, but it's 90 square miles. Yeah. And. And that's when you look up the.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. Will you look up the population of LA County.

[Garrett Maxey]

12 million, the last I heard.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

9.6.

[Andy Stumpf]

9.6. That is 8.7 times more population than the state of Montana.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. It's wild.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's. It's unbelievable. And then if you add San Diego to that, that's going to be another probably 6 to 7 million. You're talking 15 million people easy, in the first 120 miles north of the.

[Garrett Maxey]

Southern border of the U.S. it's wild. And the. Just the area that that county covers, it's not the biggest county in California by any means. But just how fast was helicopter. I worked on the north end of the county.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yep.

[Garrett Maxey]

So that's kind of where we were loitering. Okay, perfect. Yeah. And it's a lot of desert. You get pockets of dense population, but a lot of open desert. And just those guys being able to get there to you that fast is. It's lifesavers. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did your dad encourage you going law enforcement, or is that something you decided on your own?

[Garrett Maxey]

Some. I decided on my own. My dad wanted me. Wanted me to be a firefighter.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't. Do you. Do you need us to cut that out of the episode? No, Michael, let's make note of this. I think that was an error.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, no, he wanted me to be a firefighter, and he was a fire explorer himself and.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay, does that mean pyromaniac?

[Garrett Maxey]

A little bit.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. That man's campfires were out of hand.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

But here's. I'm gonna admit this, and this might be what every other cop thinks, might not be, but I am terrified of small spaces. I don't like having a mask over my face. I don't like, like, I. I shit my pants nearly every time I hang, like, Christmas lights. I don't like heights. I don't like getting on ladders.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, that's an unreasonable fear.

[Garrett Maxey]

It is.

[Andy Stumpf]

There's reasonable fears and unreasonable fears.

[Garrett Maxey]

Fires. Fires are scary. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

If you don't like tight spaces and you don't like masks and you don't like heat.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You probably shouldn't be either, like a chef or a firefighter.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Zero desire to do. I mean, either of those things. Either of those things. So and then, you know, you watch Cops. Cops is like the best show ever. They don't show you the stacks of paperwork on the back end, but yeah, it's like, oh yeah, I want to drive fast and I want to go take people to jail and find the dope and the guns and all that cool stuff.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And there's a reason they don't make, you know, firefighter live. You just kind of hang around the station, you get called out, they do some really cool stuff. But it is a lot of hanging around, not a whole lot of proactive stuff, so. And being kind of a spaz myself, I'm like, I, I gotta get out there. I realize now, like, I definitely took the wrong test.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, how old were you when you started pursuing that path?

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man, I got on with the Sheriff's Explorers in high school.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

As a sophomore.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do they require a college degree for laso?

[Garrett Maxey]

You know, I think they do now.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

I read something about that. I don't know if that's still the case. Here's the thing with LA county and probably a lot of different agencies in that area is you've got some of the hardest working line personnel and line supervisors and down. You really couldn't ask for better people. They did the whole college degree thing for a while. They got rid of it. And during that time is when I got in. I mean, I got in, Gosh, I got hired when I was 18 by the sheriff's office. Yeah. So I think back, do you think.

[Andy Stumpf]

That'S a touch young for that?

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh my gosh, 100%, man, 100%. And I, I don't regret, was either the Marine Corps or the sheriffs. And I had started the process when I was 17 and a half to get on with the sheriff's office, the sheriff's department there. And it was for a civilian position working in the jails. Like, hey, this is the custody assistant position.

[Andy Stumpf]

You're still 18 though.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Working in jails.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man, it was, it was, it was the wildest experience. I was. My 19th birthday was my first day in the jails and winding up at Mid Central Jail in downtown la. And it was, it was wild, dude, but it was cool because the way that this job is marketed is, hey, you're gonna go and you know you're not supposed to have any inmate contact. You're just pushing buttons. Bullshit. Hell no. Yeah. So in la, county is completely, all the time short staffed. So it's like, hey, you're filling in wherever we need you. So you're Doing inmate contact and all the stuff that it says you're not supposed to do, you're doing it.

[Andy Stumpf]

So that was a jail, more of an interim facility as opposed to a prison.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. So in LA county has this very robust. That's still not enough space, but gosh, I'd have to count on my hand and probably your hands the amount of facilities they have jails. Yeah. Where.

[Andy Stumpf]

So there's. I know there's San Quentin. Where are the other prisons in Cali? There's some. There's one up in. By Monterey.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's basically the time you see the don't pick up hitchhiker signs.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100. You're driving through. Well, at least you got a pretty view there. Yeah, the desert.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm trying to think there's east of San Diego. I think there's one out in the desert.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Actually there's. You know what, there's a prison. There's a prison under. Where I used to skydive. Not directly under. If you tried, you could make the yard. And I don't think you should try that at all.

[Garrett Maxey]

Nah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But I remember. Okay, so Southern San Diego, up in San Fran. How does that work? How do you. What's. If you're going to be held for a short period of time, do you go to jail? If it's more serious, you go to prison.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. You know, and so California laws are funky, right? There was.

[Andy Stumpf]

Among many things in California.

[Garrett Maxey]

Among other things. Yeah. So I think it was AB109 was passed and it basically said, hey, you know, you're convicted of this crime, but you're going to spend time in the LA County Jail, which would be way worse than going to prison because at least the prisons, you, you get a little bit more freedom. You get radios, you get some other. Do you really know cool stuff. Yeah, yeah. So you have a little bit more. Because it's long term. Like if you're going to spend 40 years in a prison, they're going to give you a little bit more on the amenities side of things. Whereas a jail is.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't know if it's.

[Garrett Maxey]

I, I don't either.

[Andy Stumpf]

I would need to know why somebody was in prison for 40 years. And if it was super fucked up, maybe you don't get a radio.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, right. But you know, that's how we catch lawsuits and we hurt feelings and feelings are what matter most.

[Andy Stumpf]

And yeah, I'm not saying I want to participate in any of the application of my concept. I'm just saying I Don't think a guy in prison for 40 years for something super fucked up should get a radio.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, no, I'd agree with you. Yeah, I'd agree with you on that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the jails are meant to be temporary and they became less temporary with the passing of AB109. California also passed, brought 47 and 57. So they decriminal. Not decriminalized. Like made it legal to possess methamphetamine or heroin or whatever, but dropped it down to a misdemeanor and then they made.

[Andy Stumpf]

Does that just become a waste of time for cops?

[Garrett Maxey]

It is, it is. And I would say it becomes more of a waste of time. You still got to take them to jail. You're going to hard book them, but they get a citation and they walk out usually before you're even done with a report.

[Andy Stumpf]

Really?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. So you took the dude's dope, that he probably went and burglarized a car, stripped, you know, some copper, burned a house or whatever for you took his dope away, set him off with a citation. So like, he's gonna go steal more shit to go buy more dope.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, he'll definitely show up for his court case.

[Garrett Maxey]

Probably not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I would love to see the stats on that. I'd love to see how many of them actually show up to their designated court hearing.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, I, I've seen California's number keeping. I probably wouldn't trust it too much. Yeah. But I mean, Prop 57 came through after 47 by a handful of years, but that dropped a bunch of felonies down to misdemeanors. One of those being rape of an unconscious person. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

How, how does that happen? How does somebody sit down and say, you know, here's a good idea. Yeah, the rape of an unconscious person, you know, it just doesn't sound as bad. Maybe it shouldn't be a felony in their right mind, says that I, dude.

[Garrett Maxey]

I have no idea. And if I sit here and I go, let me look at this from the other side of the table and see what they're thinking.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's what I'm trying to do. And I don't understand how you could arrive at a place where you would make the punishment for that less severe.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, but it's a non violent crime.

[Andy Stumpf]

You might want to ask the person who has that happen to them.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right? Yeah, exactly. You know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who are, you know, writing these things up haven't been victimized or don't have family.

[Andy Stumpf]

But then how do more than 50% of people vote for that? Or shaky leg, maybe it's not 50% of people, just the majority. So I don't. I mean, there's probably my recollection of California. There were so many different propositions and bills.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Let's be honest, most people, to include myself, had a passing level of understanding what it is you were voting for to begin with.

[Garrett Maxey]

100%. And if you name it, something nice and rosy like this is the safe streets law or whatever.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

What we're going to do is take all these felonies, we're going to drop them down to misdemeanors, and we're going to let these people out in your neighborhood again.

[Andy Stumpf]

What's a good way to decrease crime by lowering the threshold is what's reported a crime.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, well, exactly, exactly. And that's why stats are. Yeah, stats could be great if you're.

[Andy Stumpf]

They're also, you know, susceptible for manipulation.

[Garrett Maxey]

Exactly, exactly. I mean, that whole, that whole area, unfortunately, there's. I'm gonna go off on a quick tangent, but I got a buddy of mine, he's a deputy with LA county, And back in 2023, he gets called to a robbery in progress up in the city of Lancaster. So he gets there, suspects are female, black, male black. He detains the female portion of this party. She's resisting, she's struggling, she's fighting. He does take down, hits her with pepper spray, total of two times, I believe. Hauls her off to the car. That seemed to take the fight out of her like pepper spray should. So that got looked at by the sheriff. And the sheriff said, nah, you know what, I don't like that. I don't like the optics on that. So he sent that off to, to The LA County DA and even the LA County DA's office was like, there's not much we can do with this. The civil side of that didn't go anywhere. It got pushed up to the feds and the feds said, yeah, we'll take this. And he just, he just lost that case. He was convicted of the officer. Yeah, the deputy. He was, he was convicted on. It's. It was like battery under color of authority or it's basically excessive use of force.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did he deviate from any of the use of force criteria?

[Garrett Maxey]

No, no, he did. He did his job is what he did. And here's the thing is he was giving verbal commands. He, you know, he tried to take down first, hey, stop fighting. Stop fighting. She keeps going. And If I remember correctly, he told her, if you don't stop, I'm going to hit you in the face. And he never did. He actually used a lower level of force, which is pepper spray. It hurts, but it's not going to, it's not going to break a jaw, it's not going to bust a nose. Yeah, it's just uncomfortable. And use that instead of actually physically striking this woman. And he just got convicted. And that carries. I want to say the maximum is 10 years in federal prison.

[Andy Stumpf]

Really?

[Garrett Maxey]

This dude's got a wife, two kids. So that's, that's kind of the struggle that LA county is dealing with. And LAPD's got the same, the same issues. The problem is, you know, it's the, it's the climate that they're forcing these cops to work down there. I mean, if you work a predominantly black neighborhood, well, why aren't your stats for, you know, force or arrest or whatever? Why don't you arrest more white people? Because you got me working in a predominantly black neighborhood. That's kind of what's going to happen, right? So, yeah, Sheriff didn't like the optics on that one. Sheriff didn't like the optics on another one where deputies pulled over a car, middle of the night, no front headlights, and there's two or three female blacks in the car. And they've got their kids in there with no seatbelt and the driver's drunk, so. And might have been all three were drunk, but deputies go to take the kids. Like, hey, your kids are going to be going with DCFS now. And as they're trying to get one of the kiddos out of this lady's hands, she's got this kid in almost like a headlock kind of thing. So becomes a rescue force type situation. Deputy reaches over, clocks her in the face, and she lets go of the kid. And the kid's fine and the woman's fine. She just got tagged real quick. Didn't like that one. So he ended up losing his job over that. And then you get this issue where it's like, I guess we're not going to do our jobs. Like, we're going to do our jobs. But how do you expect cops to do their jobs down there if you're going to be, you know, hanging them out to dry for every, every use of force?

[Andy Stumpf]

It's a tough balance.

[Garrett Maxey]

It is, it is. And the problem is, like, obviously there's bad cops. Everybody knows that. Nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop. But when your brass is, you know, is Promoting the people who go out and they're hugging babies and shaking hands and all that stuff, but not the go getters. Yeah, it's rough, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

So when did you transition from jail into working on the streets?

[Garrett Maxey]

So I did a couple years as a CA and let's see, I was 20. 20 or 21. I think I was 21 when I graduated the deputy academy and had to go back to the jails. And I was there for about a year. The way LA county works is you put in your. It was three stations where you want to work and Palmdale was my number one, Santa Clarita number two. And then I had a throwaway station. I couldn't remember who it was, but I was getting ready to go to Palmdale station. I got a phone call, said, hey, you're going to Santa Clarita, which is the city where I worked. And my, my recollection was, you know, like it's, it's a slower city and in a lot of respects it is slower than that. Antelope Valley, Palmdale, Lancaster area. But once I started actually working there, realized that this is a lot faster than, than I thought it was going to be.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

So I was at that station for about four years and then that puts us in about 20. 20. Yeah, three, four years. And then.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, and I don't know a whole lot about the career of sheriffs other than through my local touch points. And I've seen a good buddy of mine, he navigates through. He did a drug task force, he went back to working on patrol. He augments his. I wonder. I don't think he has a paramedic qual emt. Maybe he rides around in the like technical rescue helicopter as well. They have a deputy in that first. Well, he's a detective now, which is shocking. And I feel like crime is not being solved because he doesn't, he doesn't pay attention to a lot. I feel like he could be surprised by his own shadow sometimes. So yeah, if crime is actually up in the Valley, I would actually probably look in that direction. But so he's navigated around a little bit. So of all the type of stuff that you could get into.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

How did you find your way into the ICAC stuff? Which for people listening means Internet crimes against children. Which to me when I hear like that I'm like thinking the darkest, deepest, most fucked up shit that human beings do.

[Garrett Maxey]

For sure. For sure. And you'd be correct. I mean it's. Yeah, it's one of the. And we'll get to that portion. But to answer your question, you know, starting out, I was like, I just want to do the dope and the guns and the sexy stuff. And I got off training, and training was a lot of, you know, you're learning how to write reports, you're learning how to do a bunch of stuff. Right. But as a trainee, it's like you're taking all the paper. So I got off training and kind of was at this point where I'm like, I really don't know how to find dope. So started hanging out with people who did.

[Andy Stumpf]

But your paperwork skills were, I bet.

[Garrett Maxey]

Good because of a handful of really good sergeants that bled all over my reports. They made me good. Report writer. Yes. So, yeah, I started learning kind of how to do the actual proactive cop stuff. And I loved it. And I, like a lot of cops do, Unfortunately, I was trying to avoid a lot of the nasty calls, the rape calls, the. Anything involving sex crimes against children. And it's not so much that I didn't care, it's just that it's really uncomfortable and I. Leaves me feeling pretty gross, you know?

[Andy Stumpf]

Is that kind of a shared sentiment? Law enforcement, wild, like.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Not that you don't want to be there to help, but it. That it takes a special type of person to be able to tolerate that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, I'd say so.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

I'd say so. And I think a lot of it was you're. You don't want to be that guy who's stuck on a, on a shift, killer of a call, right? So you get a rape call and, and this is going to vary depending on what agency you're at, but LA county, you do, you're not calling a detective out, you're doing the whole, the whole investigation, really, up front, Right. So you're interviewing, collecting evidence, you're doing the whole nine yards, and then writing a report, submitting your evidence and shipping it off to Special Victims. So it's, it's a long, long day and you're not going to be out backing your partners. You're not going to be out doing proactive, you know, sexy stuff.

[Andy Stumpf]

It basically takes you off the street.

[Garrett Maxey]

It does, it does. And it's, it's got to be done and it's vitally important, and dispatchers know that. Everybody really knows that. But you avoid those calls if you can, if you're, if that's just not your gig, you know, that's fair. And at the time, it wasn't mine, and it wasn't that I didn't care. It was just, ooh, it made me really uncomfortable and it's going to kill my shift. And I was honestly, it's just selfish, like I was being selfish. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and not what I was hired to do, which is go and help people. But fast forward a couple years in, I'm talking with a special victims detective and he's, he's telling me about a case that he's working. And I was like, man, I don't know how you work that stuff. And he was like, I don't know how you don't. Like, it's really the most important stuff you can do because you know, violent crime, homicide, robbery, you know, it's, there's usually a reason behind a homicide. There's usually a reason for a robbery or you know, just savages going out doing savage things. But sex crimes against kids, like, there's no kid that's asking to be victimized. There's usually, it's just, it's the, in my opinion. Right. It's the worst of the worst.

[Andy Stumpf]

Most people, I think would agree with you.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's just almost everybody I've talked to, there's a, they can, they believe people can change.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

There's some pathway to forgiveness. And then you bring up things with little kids and they're like, no, no, kill that motherfucker.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, right. It's the wildest thing. Obviously I don't own that.

[Andy Stumpf]

I do, I 100 and I wish that they would federally allow me to do that because I feel like it's a service not being utilized. But almost everybody has that line.

[Garrett Maxey]

Well, and here's the thing is, I think that it doesn't take some mathematician to sit there and calculate stats for everyone to know like, yeah, if you're.

[Andy Stumpf]

Attracted to children, the recidivism rate is.

[Garrett Maxey]

Through the, it's through the roof. It's through the roof because there's again world according to me. Right. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever, but there's nothing you can do. There's no money you can give me. There's no electro shock therapy that you can give me that's going to convince me that I'm not attracted to women. I'm not attracted to my wife. I'm, you know, and I imagine for gay dudes it's probably the same thing. People are attracted to the same sex. It's probably the same thing. People who are attracted to children, why wouldn't that be the same? Thing.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, I was gonna say, have you tried making out with a dude for science?

[Garrett Maxey]

I haven't. Still open.

[Andy Stumpf]

So how do you know?

[Garrett Maxey]

I don't, I don't.

[Andy Stumpf]

So you live in the gray. You live in the gray area. You don't even fucking know. You don't even believe in science.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's hard to believe sometimes, I guess. Hard to believe sometimes. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't know. There is something in that step. And the fact, you know, one of the ones things that has, again, it falls in line with that. How does this person or a person sit down and go, okay, rape of an unconscious person. We should probably round the edges on that and make the punishment less severe. The attempt to change pedophiles into a minority attracted individual is like a fucking razor blade on my skin. I can't believe that anybody would try to round the edges on that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, right. And I gotta walk back a little bit of what I said and follow my sword a little bit here because there, there are stats on people who were victimized as children.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yep.

[Garrett Maxey]

And if I remember right, it's, you know, for every person that's victimized as a child and it might be sexual and like a physical abuse situation, they go on to abuse three more people. So that's like an exponential growth type of thing. Right. So I guess the question becomes, is it, is it nature, is it nurture, Is it, is it a little bit of both? I mean, because we see it's probably a combination of. Right. And you move on to the people who are, you know, maybe they haven't hands on, abused a child in a sexual way. But they're into, used to be called child pornography. But pornography, what do they call it now? Ccm? Child sexual abuse material or child sexual exploitation material?

[Andy Stumpf]

Why did they change it from child pornography?

[Garrett Maxey]

So my understanding is rough of a term. Well, it is a, it's one of those like words that just like takes minutes off your life when you hear it.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's so good because it's so horrible.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

So let's, let's again, let's not round the edges on this shit.

[Garrett Maxey]

I think they got rid of child pornography because pornography, there's like this like consent to it and it leads people to believe that there's consent.

[Andy Stumpf]

And even in adult pornography there's an argument to be made. There's a trafficking aspect of that. There's a monetary aspect of a consent.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. So in, how about this though?

[Andy Stumpf]

Child consent?

[Garrett Maxey]

Well, that's, that's the thing, you know. Yeah. You're You're a child. Even if. If you're 16 and you're consenting, like.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. The law doesn't recognize that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Yeah. Especially when the dude's a lot older. Like, definitely not older creepy dudes. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

God.

[Garrett Maxey]

And everybody's known about the older creepy dudes forever and ever. Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know the worst advice we give our kids?

[Garrett Maxey]

What's that?

[Andy Stumpf]

Stranger danger.

[Garrett Maxey]

How so?

[Andy Stumpf]

It's almost always somebody you fucking know. It's not a stranger.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, I'll talk about this broadly because it just happened, but at the coffee shop where I met you, most of our staff is younger women.

[Garrett Maxey]

Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

There is an interesting occurrence of older fucking men making comments. They are lucky that I haven't been there to hear one because I would come over the fucking counter.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

But there it's. And for the younger women, I worry because they're not recognizing the slight pushing of boundaries to see what somebody can get away with. They're testing the water.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Make a little bit of a comment. You know, we had. We had an incident where an older man was soliciting for hugs from the barista. And I'm trying, and it breaks my heart because I want the people to understand that. That there's no reason for that. I don't give a fuck if that person reminds you of your grandfather, because it's not. It's a random stranger. Notice they're not asking for hugs from everybody.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Notice that once you said yes the first time, it became more progressive. Notice that there was a phone number that was given to you after that. It's predation.

[Garrett Maxey]

Exactly.

[Andy Stumpf]

And God damn it, I wish they would do it when I was there.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man. It's.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, but it worries me because it wasn't recognized by the person it was happening to. And I had a conversation with the person about it, and then I ejected for life. The person associated because it happened to be in the store.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

And they approached me, and Michael was in there for that. I forgot about that. He noticed my knife hand when I was discussing. You should have cruised over, Michael. I was gonna. It would.

[Garrett Maxey]

It looked really funny.

[Andy Stumpf]

It would have been a nice learning. It was like a nice E5 fucking counseling. Just up one side and down the other with instructions to get your coffee and get the out of here.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But stranger danger. I mean, you probably know the stats again. We'll get into the stuff that you were working on, but I bet more often than not, it probably wasn't a total Stranger.

[Garrett Maxey]

No, and you're, you're 110% right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Like there is the Internet where they try to off platform.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

But it's like this creepy uncle, you.

[Garrett Maxey]

Know, or, and see, here's, here's my, my problem with, with like stats and all that because it makes you look in one direction more than another sometimes that's good. But if you're looking in this direction, you miss all the stuff over here too. And like there is the creepy uncle and there is the dude that comes in and solicits hugs and he's trying to break that physical barrier. Yeah. So that he can take the next step. Right. But a lot of what we're seeing in the national center of missing exploited Children, their stats for 2024 are out yet. But 2023, there's stats on like child enticement type stuff on the Internet.

[Andy Stumpf]

See, and that's a tool where maybe stranger danger actually is becoming more real. Because those tools didn't exist when you and I were growing up.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, right.

[Andy Stumpf]

And like a dude who was kinked out on shit that is just horrendous. But they lived in Florida. Weird shit happens in Florida. I think we can all agree upon that. Florida man's a real thing. He is a feature, not a bug. So let's just say Florida. And you lived in California.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

0% chance of having to worry about that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct.

[Andy Stumpf]

Now it's totally different.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh yeah, it is. And I mean, so NCMEC stats on. On the child enticement that actually resulted in a kidnapping. It was over a couple years span. There's a few hundred. It was over 400. So most of these kids are found over state lines. There's still like 1 or 2% that are missing, which is awful.

[Andy Stumpf]

Does that trip it to federal if they take them across state lines?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, it can.

[Andy Stumpf]

Good.

[Garrett Maxey]

It can. And as it should. Yeah. The thing is that it's not like the creepy dude in the van. It's, you know, these average suspects are male, white, and they're mid to late 20s.

[Andy Stumpf]

Really?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

On the like online enticement.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

That makes more sense because they grew up with that tool.

[Garrett Maxey]

That's my thinking too. Yeah, that's my thinking too. I mean, if I try to apply.

[Andy Stumpf]

This to my father, he wouldn't be able to entice anything.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Because he'd be dming Michael, you know, accidental pictures of his feet from his sofa.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Which let me tell you, nobody wants to see Those races, claws, 50 years of feet in rugby boots. You know what I Mean Michael.

[Garrett Maxey]

No, I didn't see the picture.

[Andy Stumpf]

Thankfully, I heard you to totally tangent. I heard you scored another try playing rugby.

[Garrett Maxey]

I did in practice. Let's clarify in practice.

[Andy Stumpf]

What I hear when he says that is he was out on a field by himself with a ball running around and he scored what he thought was basically a touchdown. But in rugby.

[Garrett Maxey]

Essentially that's what happened.

[Andy Stumpf]

I told, that's what I told Leah today because she was all excited. Oh, I heard Michael scored another try. We were at breakfast today, like my middle son's home from college and these two fuck sticks are over at the house with my dad. He could watch rugby for 10 centuries straight. And they're talking about all these drills and yeah, Leah's all excited that Michael scored a show. I'm like, listen, there was nobody else there. Nobody was chasing him. Let's back it off the edge here a little bit.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, that's basically what happened.

[Andy Stumpf]

I know, yeah, yeah, I know. I tell her, you are out in the field by our townhouse and that's where you score all the tries.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Nobody else is out there.

[Garrett Maxey]

I just do my own practices.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I'm talking about put it on the board.

[Garrett Maxey]

A win's a win.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. So stranger danger.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. So. Yeah. So how did you. So the guy was asking you how can you not work these things? Was that kind of your intro?

[Garrett Maxey]

Kind of, sort of, yeah, that was.

[Andy Stumpf]

Got you thinking about it?

[Garrett Maxey]

It got me thinking about it. Definitely got me looking at things through a different lens. I think the interest was always there. It's just, it's intimidating, it's gross and you know, it's, it like those are the investigations that are just. They stick with you, man. You know, So I never got a chance to do that in LA County. By the time the riots kicked off, my son was just born and told my wife. I go, we're, we're out, dude. Yeah, we are out. So applied with a couple departments out in Idaho and got hired.

[Andy Stumpf]

Pretty easy transfer. You don't have to go back through an academy, any of that stuff.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's like a lateral academy.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, so it was like, I feel.

[Andy Stumpf]

Like that's a little bit of a gentleman's course.

[Garrett Maxey]

It was, I'll tell you what I mean, so all the other as it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Probably should be at a certain amount of experience level.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I mean it was a 10 week academy.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

There was other California laterals in there, all from Southern California and the academies in Southern California are all pretty similar. It's a. It's a full stress academy. It's 22 weeks of just screaming in PT and, you know, get your day ruined every day. So wind up there and sit in that position of attention, just waiting for the hammer to fall and like, hey, there's coffee and bagels. And we're like, that's a trap, dude. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Like, listen, dude, we've played this game.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's. Nah, you don't go touch that stuff.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

It took about three weeks for anybody to actually make it over to the coffee pot and pour some.

[Andy Stumpf]

But not get screamed at.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, not get screamed at, exactly. I don't think anybody got screamed at. I was like, this is like a vacation. This is great.

[Andy Stumpf]

There's a time and place for everything.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, 100%.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yep.

[Garrett Maxey]

So made it through the 10 weeks and went out and did patrol training again, which was a blast. I really enjoyed the city I was working in. Kind of reminded me a lot of the city that I was in before, just on a smaller scale and not having the same issues as Southern California did. So it was a lot of fun.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I moved from Southern California up here too. I totally understand what you're saying.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, I'm like, oh, my God, dope's a felony here. This is great. Taking people to jail for.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is it still a felony, though, in Idaho? Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

How about weed?

[Garrett Maxey]

It's still a misdemeanor.

[Andy Stumpf]

Michael isn't. Well, it's federally illegal. What is it in? It's recreational and medicinal here, right?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

So that's not a misdemeanor at all?

[Garrett Maxey]

No, I don't think so.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's weird that it can be state legal, but federally legal.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, that's super weird. Works.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't understand how it works either.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'd say we're a couple election cycles, though. I feel like they probably at some point will decriminalize weed.

[Garrett Maxey]

Probably.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think more than half the states are already at least medicinal, if not recreational.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Idaho is one of those funky ones where I don't know if they'll ever legalize it. In fact, I. I heard. I don't know how true this is, but I heard that they're like, oh, no, we want to make the penalty stiffer for possession of marijuana.

[Andy Stumpf]

So 49 out of 50 states will be.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Slightly more progressive than I know.

[Garrett Maxey]

Exactly. Whatever. Yeah. But. But, yeah, man. Just went out there and knowing that I wanted to go work, you know, special victims type work. Did the patrol thing. Got A really great opportunity to help out in the detective bureau there and let me back up a little bit. Before I started the academy there, I got put in with a detective unit just to like, hey, you're waiting for a date, just help out.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you have to go to a different school or additional training to become a detective?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do they teach you?

[Garrett Maxey]

It's like basics of investigations.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

I think it could like a process.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or are you, I mean, not quite. Yeah, I mean, not again. I think people think Sherlock Holmes would be a non fictional detective where you're out there and you know, you're just leaping to conclusions and. Yeah, a CSI laboratory can get your results in six minutes as opposed to six months and.

[Garrett Maxey]

Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so it's, and this is going to change, you know, state to state where yeah, you've got to go through this extensive training to become a detective in some places and some places you make detective and you're doing work and then they throw you in a course whenever it comes up. So with this first agency that I was with in Idaho, they tossed me in there. I talked with the sergeant, go, this is my background, this is what I'm, you know, this is what I'm used to writing and running investigations. And they're like, okay, cool, thanks for telling me that. Here's a full caseload. All right. So started doing that and, and then hit an academy and then went on to patrol training. Kept real close with the detectives there and you know, still stopping in, saying hi, showing my face. It just, it got to a point when I was working there, you know, being the sole breadwinner, I just couldn't make that one work anymore. So I loved, loved, loved that city in that department, just financially. Yeah, couldn't do it anymore. So applied for another agency and got hired on and same thing, not so much the academy, it was just straight in, do the patrol training portion and I, first thing I did was go and talk with detectives. When I got there, like this is what I want to do. I'm, you know, real passionate about crimes against children and special victims type work. Like perfect, sounds good, man. We'll get through the field training portion and when a spot comes up, you know, put in for it. So as luck would have it, a couple spots opened up as I was coming towards the end of my training or just finishing and put in and we were off to the races, man. Got in.

[Andy Stumpf]

What kind of additional training do they give you to prepare you for the shit you're going to see in the Special Victims or ICAC world.

[Garrett Maxey]

So they don't really provide that for you. I went and sought additional training through. It's like free training that ICAC does, but it doesn't prepare you for what you're actually going to see.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's how the fuck do they on ramp you for that.

[Garrett Maxey]

There's a, like the full Clockwork Orange.

[Andy Stumpf]

And they just put.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, they probably should. I mean, probably should.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think if they did that. No, that somebody who went through something like that would just be like, yeah, yeah, I'll go back on the street.

[Garrett Maxey]

There's like an emotional survival or emotional readiness class. I shouldn't even say class. I think it's a couple hours. It's a block built within, you know, a one or two day course on how to investigate those kinds of crimes. But it's just like, hey, you're going to see some really bad stuff. And we have a psych on staff and talking about icac. Yeah, they've got a psych on staff and it's mandatory. You got to go talk to her like once a quarter or something like that. But you know, working and with that first agency, I got to work a couple of cases where it was like ICAC type cases where you're dealing with child pornography and that kind of thing. So I knew kind of what that stuff was. And this is going to sound terrible, but I mean these cases that I was working with that first agency, these girls were eight maybe, youngest at six years old, which is atrocious. It's terrible. But it's not the, you know, infant torture and infant rape and that kind of thing. So there's some really, just like I thought I knew what evil was kind of thing. And then I went and worked icac. So and for, for anyone who doesn't know, I mean icac, Internet Crimes against children, they're, they're, gosh, I can't remember how many task force entities they have around the country, but generally it's going to be the state investigator's office and their investigators attached to that task force and then affiliate positions with local agencies around that state. And so, you know, when you get a cyber tip or whatever the case may be, it gets I guess tasked over to that law enforcement agent, whoever's attached to that task force. But the nice thing is you've got the whole state investigator's office there behind you.

[Andy Stumpf]

It makes sense.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. So yeah, left that first agency, went to the second one, said this is what I'm really wanting to do. Got in with detectives. I was working Major Crimes and position open for icac. And I was like, man, I want to go do that. Like, those are the people I want to go after. So I was the only person who put in for it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Shocking, right?

[Garrett Maxey]

And got that spot and went over and started working those. Working those investigations.

[Andy Stumpf]

How long was it until you realized you were in some pretty deep waters?

[Garrett Maxey]

Man, I made it about six months. I made it about six months. So I've got a little kid. He's going to be five this coming July. So, you know, like I said, I kind of knew what I was getting myself into. Those were the crimes I really wanted to, you know, investigate, and those are the bad people I really wanted to go get. The problem is when you're working those investigations, you get what's called a cyber tip from national center of Missing Exploited Children. And at this time, ID's backlog for cyber tips was. It was terrible. They've since got it figured out, and I think. I think they're one of, like, the highest producing units in the nation right now. They're doing great. But at that point, it was just, all right, we got to get these cyber tips out and start investigating them. And, man, a lot of those. A lot of those, after I kind of got my feet wet, were just atrocious, man. I mean, we're talking like, you know, infant rape torture, really. Young kids under 2 years old, a lot of them.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did you ever roll up any of those guys, catch them? What are they like when you're sitting across the table from them? And I'm curious as to. I mean, obviously the Internet lives forever to a degree. People try to obfuscate and hide stuff, but there's white hackers or white hat hackers and all that stuff that help law enforcement, and it leaves a breadcrumb. Today's episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I do not know how many times I have had conversations with individuals, with brands, with organizations, talking about online security. Let's be real honest about our anxiety rectangles right here. Most of the interface that we have, unless you're being super targeted, and I mean you targeting the information that you're looking for, our attention is being monetized. That's what this is about. I'm on Instagram. I do my best to manage my time on Instagram, but you can almost feel it. It's barely behind the curtain of they are trying to monetize your attention to keep you on there, to keep you scrolling, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a vpn. Except when you start talking about privacy, people's ability to track you, brand's ability to track you. So a VPN is a virtual private network. And I have some examples actually of where I've had to use a VPN even just when I'm traveling to upload the podcast so I could get around local country restrictions. I had to change my location from the country that I was in back into the US so I could actually access portals like Spotify, which people didn't know isn't allowed in all countries. So it's really tough to upload if you're in one of those countries. A virtual private network is a secure tunnel between your device and the Internet. You would like to believe that on your device you have unfettered access to all information throughout the world. The reality is though, each country offers up serves up different types of info. If you don't Believe me, download ExpressVPN, change your country to somewhere other than the United States, or if you're in the United States, go to somewhere else and it'll be really interesting to see what they have to offer. I see it the most when you're talking about things like Netflix, the local offerings in the area, which totally makes sense. But if you think that your Netflix Netflix screen interface is what Everybody sees, that's 100% not the case. VPNs allow you to connect to a secure server and your Internet traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel that nobody can see into, including hackers, governments, or your Internet service provider. They have servers in 105 countries, best in class encryption, lightning fast speeds, trusted server technology, and it works on every platform, so iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, routers and more. There's no activity logs you can use on up to eight devices. And it's the world's number one premium vpn. If Internet privacy security and the ability to look at what you want to look at, you know, away from the prying eyes of a government. Sounds good. Head over to ExpressVPN.com ClearedHot. You can get up to four extra months for free. Just for listeners to the show, that is. ExpressVPN.com ClearedHot let's get back to the show. Do you try to get him? How do you do it? Because I imagine it like, you know, the matrix where he puts the massive file down Mr. Anderson and then winds it and flips it open and starts going through the pages. Do you lay it out for them or do they know they're fucked when they're sitting there?

[Garrett Maxey]

Anyway, you know, I don't know if they know. They must know why we're there and they've got it.

[Andy Stumpf]

I suspect they have a pretty good suspicion.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. Do they think they can get away with it? I don't know. I'm not sure what's going through their head at that exact moment. But if I put myself in their shoes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

There's a reason why there's a lot of these suspects end up, call it taking a brass plea. They usually take themselves out. Not usually, but it happens quite, quite a bit with those types of investigations.

[Andy Stumpf]

I wish it was happening more.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I would again volunteer my services to any agency that needs help with this. I just need a blanket pardon and an address and an eight and a half by eleven glossy headshot.

[Garrett Maxey]

Hey. And obviously I don't condone any violence or anyone taking their own lives, but. Yeah, you know, it does.

[Andy Stumpf]

I condone pedophiles taking their own lives. I would be. I would feel comfortable going on record with that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. With the pedophile killing himself.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't say that, and I don't say that lightly, and there's very few things that I would be okay with that with, but somebody that harms children like that. Off into the sunset.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, that's a. That's a rough one, man. Like most criminals, you take a murderer and, you know, just someone who. Just a sociopath and be like, hey, pedophiles. Yeah. No, they're like, absolutely not.

[Andy Stumpf]

I do appreciate how they get treated in prison.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's not. It is not a good experience.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I appreciate that even among criminals, there's honor among thieves. And from what I've heard from some people who are deeply in the know, it is a rough ride.

[Garrett Maxey]

It is.

[Andy Stumpf]

No pun intended.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, I. I did a relatively short time in that task force, and those investigations are so detailed and they take a long time. You're writing a lot of legal process to different entities to try and get information to put your case together. So while I was in there with icac, I had investigations going. I wasn't able to get one to a point where I was taking my guy, but. But I was also before that, taking people for similar type crimes. Right. Producing child pornography.

[Andy Stumpf]

What's it like sitting in the room with those people? Do they seem normal?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, for the most part. I mean, there's. There's some dudes where you go. That's stereotypical, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's the dude living in his mom's basement. And he's got the Jeffrey Dahmer glasses. And it says, like, I don't know, I heart anime or whatever on there. It's always anime or Star Wars. I don't know why.

[Andy Stumpf]

Michael. Yes. I believe I've seen you in both.

[Garrett Maxey]

Of those shirts, often at the same time.

[Andy Stumpf]

We're gonna need to open a case.

[Garrett Maxey]

Dude.

[Andy Stumpf]

First off, don't ever wear your Star wars shirt again. Because that's what it means. Now we're gonna double leg anybody we see wearing a Star wars shirt on the street.

[Garrett Maxey]

For the record, I don't have a Star wars shirt.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yes, you do.

[Garrett Maxey]

I just want people to know that. And Listen, this isn't 100%. I like Star Wars.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, it's a trend.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's a trend. It's a trend. It's. It's always anime or Star Wars.

[Andy Stumpf]

How do they act when you're laying it out and they realize they're fucked? It's either a breaking point for them generally.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. So there's going to be. There's the denial. And it's usually a very soft denial, like, no, I didn't do that. And you can kind of see them as melting.

[Andy Stumpf]

Flip the page, Mr. Anderson.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, so, for example, one of the cases that's adjudicated at this point, this guy, he was basically grooming his niece from a super young age. And this is a. This is one of those cases where she had her own cell phone, but she also had a burner phone that her uncle gave to her.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh, of course.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. So. And that's where they communicated through Facebook. And over the course of quite a few years, I think she was. She was 12 or 13 when her case landed on my desk. But he had been, you know, sexually abusing her. Online enticement type stuff. Hey, sneak out of your house and come over. I love you. I'm gonna leave my wife and we're gonna get married and all sorts of stuff like that. Right. So we get to a point where we can make an arrest, and we come to find out that he had been producing photos of her and had those on his phone. So we get those photos, we put our whole case together. Rewind on that. We knew about some of these photos. I didn't know how many, though, but I had two or three at the time. We arrest him, bringing them in for the interview. And at that point, I mean, this guy's like, he doesn't know how much we know. Right. But as we're laying it out for him, you can see him kind of sinking Sinking, sinking, sinking. And the denials become weaker and weaker and weaker and. And eventually are just like, hey, man, like, we know you. You showed up to a park to have sex with your niece. Like, you haven't been talking to your niece for the past three weeks. You've been talking to me and my partner so we know what's up. And we have all your messages and we have the photos inside the truck. You showed up with a. With a moving blanket down on the bench seat. You got condoms in the car, flowers and the chocolate that we asked you to bring.

[Andy Stumpf]

Jesus.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right? Like that kind of thing. So he gets to a point where he goes, yeah, okay. Nope, I showed up. This was the reason I was trying to get back at my wife, because we've been having issues and yada, yada, yada, so. Which. That's a lie, but thanks for telling me that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And finally, also, there's a.

[Andy Stumpf]

A variety of. Probably other legal means that you could get back at your wife if you wanted to.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or don't be a dipshit. Maybe sit down and talk with your wife.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, the. The last thing that we showed them were the photographs. They were. They were. We call it sanitized. Right. So we. We sanitize the photos, digitize it out or whatever. Correct.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And put them down and go, hey, what about this photos? Is that her? And he goes, yeah. I go, that finger right there in that foot. Is that your finger? And he goes, yeah. Take this one. Yep. Take this one. Yep. Take this one. Yep. All right, cool. So. God, last year he got. He got 30 years, which still I don't think is quite enough.

[Andy Stumpf]

But it's enough if every day somebody is wearing him like a condom while somebody else.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's where my mind goes with that.

[Garrett Maxey]

I don't think he's having a good time.

[Andy Stumpf]

I hope it's the worst ever.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

His. Not that it would be better if it was somebody who was unknown. His niece.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And again, this is where the stranger danger thing. We have to do a better job of presenting a realistic picture of where the danger comes from. And it might be coming more real because of the ability of the interconnectedness. But that story, that level of connection, somebody that you knew, is so much more common in the conversations that I've had than the random unknown.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. It's like upwards of 80% of abuse cases. The abuser is somebody the child knows.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

So it's. There's a million stories like that, unfortunately. So parents had no idea that this girl had a burner phone that uncle gave to her.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh, for sure.

[Garrett Maxey]

And that's like, that's the thing. Like, I mean, gosh, if this, if this podcast saves one kid, like, dude, awesome. This is all worth it. And that's, that's my goal, is to try and get info out to parents. But it's like, listen, if you've got a kid that's a teenager, don't be shocked if they have a burner phone. Go, like, be a parent, Toss their stuff, go look through their rooms.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. And that brings up an interesting. So answer as broadly as you need to. I'm curious in that. Oh, you said it was adjudicated, so.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

But again, obviously answer however you're most comfortable in that situation. How was that uncle able to convince her that, A, what was happening was normal in any way, shape or form, and B, get her to a place where the burner conversations. Not telling an adult. How does that happen?

[Garrett Maxey]

So we don't have the chats from when they first started talking.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, they. I mean, there's a level of proximity, so we know how they got, how they met. Right, Right. Wasn't a creepy dude with an ice cream van down by the river.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct.

[Andy Stumpf]

Which Michael would fall for 100% of the time, if I'm being honest. But. So it's not that. Right. So they're probably having Thanksgiving, whatever it may be. Whatever. And so I just, I'm fascinated.

[Garrett Maxey]

How.

[Andy Stumpf]

How do they convince the. Maybe she was just too young to understand, but the burner phone, the sneaking out, how.

[Garrett Maxey]

So I think, and I can't speak for her, but from what we did hear from her, this started when she was super young. And it's. Hey, this is a secret. If you tell anyone, like, your mom and dad are. They're never going to talk to me again. They're probably going to get divorced. It's all your fault. Yada, yada, yada. And there's usually so something to that effect. Yes. That keeps a kid quiet. And then it just kind of. It just kind of grows from there. Especially, like he's got access to her all the time. And it was. It was always a. It was a small touch, and then it became, all right, well, I touched your knee, so now I'm going to try and touch your thigh. And now.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. The boundaries just get pushed and pushed and pushed microscopically.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes. And he was patient. Didn't push it. And he just, he was able to get her to a point where she. She knew that it wasn't normal. She said, I don't, I don't like this. It makes me feel gross. But it just kind of is what it is. And I think that there's a lot of kids that, that deal with that and it's, it's tragic because you're a kid, you don't know any different. You don't know any different. Yeah. So she just, I think she just got to a point where it's normal and if something bad happens, it's my fault. And she was.

[Andy Stumpf]

How did it end up on your guys radar?

[Garrett Maxey]

Parents found her phone.

[Andy Stumpf]

The burner.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did they know it was the uncle?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes, because he was talking to her through his Facebook account.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh, I would have definitely gone a non legal route with that.

[Garrett Maxey]

I, I told her dad, I said, hey, like, man, I appreciate the amount of restraint that you have. It was, it was honestly, it was commendable the amount of restraint that he had.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think I have it. I, I also feel like the legal system should allow, before they're sent to prison, somewhere between five to 30 minutes alone in the room with the person.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And whatever happens just kind of happens. It, you know, it is what it is. You have a 30 minute pardon.

[Garrett Maxey]

Have that. Have that. It's.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. What happens in here? We don't know. There's no cameras, there's no windows. The door locks from the outside. We're just gonna put you in there and we'll be back in 30.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. This girl said something that, like, I mean, it's still, it just, it breaks my heart. She, she had mentioned when she was being sexually abused. She goes, I, it made me feel gross. But it was confusing because it also like it physically it felt good because, you know, that's, that portion of your body is supposed to feel good. It's not supposed to feel pain. Right. So, I mean, it's, you can imagine how in a young child, you know, 10 years old, give or take.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

How confusing that has to be.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, how does that not scramble your eggs for the rest of your life too?

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. And she's got a great family. I stopped by their house not too long ago just to check on them, see how they're doing. And she's, she's doing great.

[Andy Stumpf]

Good.

[Garrett Maxey]

Grades are good. I mean, I, I don't think I've ever been so blown away as like watching some of these kids come out of these situations and just rebound as well as they do. Some of them don't, which is tragic. But I mean, man, it's wild. It's wild how well they can do.

[Andy Stumpf]

So in that instance, the parents found the burner phone.

[Garrett Maxey]

Uh huh.

[Andy Stumpf]

When people are into this type of shit, is there almost a community of people that communicate back and forth? I'm curious how a lot of the, I mean the reality is, the hard, hard reality to absorb is if there's a smart person out there that wants to do really up and they're able to compartmentalize it. Well, it may never hit law enforcement radar.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I'm curious if there's any tendencies and it's not like I'm trying to give a shopping list to people that maybe never know where this may go.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

So again, answer ever you want to, but it seems as if there would be a slip up or an error along the way where it finally lands on radar for law enforcement.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. And you know, I was thinking about this exact exchange because you don't want.

[Andy Stumpf]

To educate the predator either.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct. And, and the fact of the matter is like criminals do dumb things, but they're not stupid. They're usually pretty smart.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And so if, if I was a criminal and I want to find out how I'm going to get better at what I do or how I can get away with it, I'm going to seek out the cop talking to a guy on a podcast about what I'm doing and try and get away with, you know, like, take some notes. Yeah. Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I like hide burner phone better.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know, I mean, but I actually am legitimately thinking about that as we're having this conversation because I have an immense amount of empathy for the victim and absolutely none for the predator.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I don't want to educate them at all anyway.

[Garrett Maxey]

No, no. And that's, and I'm, I'm trying to be really careful about my words here because I don't want to give anything away. And we're not going to talk about investigator, investigatory tact or anything like that, but to the person who is listening to this that maybe is looking for that tip, it's, you're not going to find it here.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

But it doesn't matter how good you are on the Internet. The Internet's a big, big place. But it's not, it's, it's not that big. And there's always a tidbit that leads back to you, that bad guy. And I guarantee you at one point that your name has come across the law enforcement officer's desk, whether it's local, state, federal, like we, we hear all the time. About how underfunded law enforcement is in these, in these, these units that work sex crimes against kids and all these things are underfunded, understaffed. And sometimes that's true. But if you're the person that's going after kids and you're listening to this right now, like, I, I hope this keeps you awake at night knowing that the people who work these units are. They're fucking bulldogs, man. Like, it's bite, it's hold, it's chew, it's, I'm going to find you eventually. And there's always a breadcrumb somewhere in all the data that comes back to that person, you know, or it comes back to their house. And now you got a SWAT team busting down your door and detaining your whole family, going, all right, well, which one of you is into kids? And it's coming. So I guess my urge to you is stop what you're doing now before it's too late, and, man, go find Jesus. Because that's the only way you're going to get any sort of mercy, any sort of grace, because it ain't coming from me. That's not my job. It's not the prosecutor.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think they can stop.

[Garrett Maxey]

That's the problem. They can't.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, the problem with that problem is they don't allow for what I consider to be the reasonable solution, which is lights out.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, well, it's like a rabid dog, right? Everybody says, like, oh, if a dog bites a kid, we put it down. You're right, we do. And obviously, I'm not condoning any violence.

[Andy Stumpf]

Here, but you leave that to me, sir.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, that's, I'm not just. Yeah, yeah, right. It's, it just, it drives me, it drives me nuts that you just eat. You can't fix it. You can't fix it. And I, I, I talked to my wife about this not too long ago where, like, if I can keep myself zoomed in on this is my casework, I'm gonna, I'll be okay. I can keep myself held together pretty good. But if I zoom out and I go, oh, boy, 20, 23, 36 million cyber tips, over 105 million files shared, and you, you can't, you can't fix it, man. Yes, I try to fix it. Correct. So I don't want these people to learn anything from this podcast besides, like.

[Andy Stumpf]

That, your day is coming.

[Garrett Maxey]

Your day is coming.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, let me ask you just along those lines. In your experience, when you're getting to that point where the Objections or denials are weakening and then you finally, it's like, hey, man, how often do they want to flip on somebody else? And I ask this because the local cops here even like the petty theft. They're like, hey, yeah, if I were to have information for you, could I enjoy not being in jail for 96 hours?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know, they'll try to tell you where a stolen bicycle is. So it's not as if people in the criminal world are unwilling to flip on others. I'm curious though, how it is with something of this level and are they more lone wolves or do you find that there are groups of people that communicate?

[Garrett Maxey]

There's groups of people who communicate. Whether they're in the same local area or not is. I'm sure that that exists. You've got multiple people, same local area, who are into the same nasty stuff. But there's also, you know, the Internet being the Internet, it's worldwide. You do get those communities where it's, you know, all these people, one chat room from around the world. So the chances of arresting one guy and going, hey, I need you to flip on a buddy and we'll take it easy on you. First of all, like, we can't really do that. It's, it's hard to take it, prosecute a case.

[Andy Stumpf]

They could maybe flip it. Like, hey, this is where I communicate with people who are like minded.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. So. And that works. That works. The, the issue is, is they're probably going to give us something we already.

[Andy Stumpf]

Know, which seems to be the case with the bicycle guys up here too.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Andy Stumpf]

They're just trying, they're trying to get out of the local jail 24 hours earlier.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, exactly. You're like, oh, the same tweaker that steals all the bikes. Yeah, thanks for the stale info, dude. Yeah, man. So it's. This world is so big and complex that it's. I don't even know if that juice would be worth the squeeze. Maybe on the federal level it might be.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, if they did have access to something or a portal or. Because I feel like law enforcement and I say this, I've never spent a second in. It is a chess match.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

As, I mean, it's the same thing as what I used to do overseas too. We would have a tactic. They would watch, they would evolve. Sometimes they would fuck us up, we would watch. And it was just constantly back and forth, forth.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I have to believe that the people that participate in this understand that they're broken in some way.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But they Also probably understand that there are others out there like them in isolation. If Covid taught us anything, is that isolation human beings up.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

And not that I want there to be a portal or way for these people to either share access and means or their own tactic, techniques and procedures, but, but they're out there trying to figure out ways to do what they do to avoid and evade law enforcement. And I feel like they're constantly out there looking for ways to communicate with others who are like minded.

[Garrett Maxey]

Sure.

[Andy Stumpf]

Outside of the purview of law enforcement.

[Garrett Maxey]

So it, it does get more difficult. So courts make things more difficult. Right. It's not like every time they make a decision that it makes it less restrictive on law enforcement. Yeah, usually gets more restrictive. And on top of that, when you're talking about cyber crimes of any kind, everything's going over to encrypted. Everything's, you know, so it makes getting your legal process through a little bit harder. It's not impossible. Just makes things harder.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, it's evolving.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's evolving. Exactly. And these people know that. They know that they're not. Again, they do dumb things, but they're not stupid. So the tactics change. We have to adapt with the tactics. And there's constantly new trainings coming out and there's new tactics coming out and there's new forensic software that comes out and it's, it's constantly evolving to try and keep up with, with the way that technology's going. I think where, where things get so difficult is with how mat just how massive the issue is. Right. And you got your people who are into the images themselves and statistically speaking, most of them are hands on offenders at one point or another. But I could see where if you got the guy who's, who's, if he's pimping out kids, maybe. But then again, most of those people, it's inter familial type stuff. It's a parent pimping out a kid, so they might not know who the other people are pimping out their kids.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is the problem more prevalent than you think most people would want to admit?

[Garrett Maxey]

Dude, 1, 100%. 100%. It is. The, the, the numbers are just staggering. Like we just talked about COVID and we just talked about, you know, cyber tips. So 2019, the cyber tips were, it was like 16 million roughly. And you fast forward to 2023 during the whole Covid type deal, jumped up to like 36 million.

[Andy Stumpf]

Jesus.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's a huge, huge jump. And the reason is because part of the reason is because we said, hey, kids, you're no longer going to school. Here's a device. Go home, do your homework. And both parents are working. So you got just like all these kids on a computer all day and you had dudes in chat rooms that were looking for kids and they literally called it harvest time. They knew that all these kids were home alone and went after them. And so now you got these cyber tips that they include the child enticement, they include the solicitation of nude photos, or just dudes sending unwarranted photos to children, or they're acting like they're children and they're not. Those cyber tips include all of that. So it's just this massive spike and. And I haven't seen the 2024 numbers. I would imagine they're probably about the same. Who knows what 2025 is going to look like. It's not like there's less Internet, it's just.

[Andy Stumpf]

No, it's evolving. And like you said, the encryption is evolving as well too.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That is an uphill battle for sure. How long were you able to stay on the ICAC task force?

[Garrett Maxey]

I made it about six months. I made it about six months. I. I'll be honest. Oh, man. So it was kind of a few things. I really, I kind of, I stepped in there on the wrong foot as it was. I had a partner down in LA county that was killed Ryan Clinken Brummer on September 16, 2023. And then the following week I started in that unit. So I'm just messed up over losing Ryan. I go to this new unit and it's, you know, it's off to the races. It's. You're learning as, as you go, like, here's your caseload. Have at. And it started out pretty solid. I was loving it. And then getting to the point where it's like, you know, four or five months in, where I know what I have to go do today. I know I'm going to go see this stuff. And I'm like literally in tears on my way to work. Like, just not in a good space, dude. And my wife knew it and she's watching me, like, circle the drain. Like, I can't. I can't give my kid a bath. I can't, you know, put them in a new pull up or do underwear. I was a mess and wasn't really talking to anybody about it and didn't really talk to any of the guys at the unit about it. And it was, it was at the point where, you know, I'm working these cases that are. It was just constantly like little, little kids. I mean, there's a video, a little girl, and she had the same baby blanket that my kid had. And it just like that one, it's.

[Andy Stumpf]

Gonna blow your brain up.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. 100. I mean, like what they tell you when you work that unit is, hey, you're gonna, on the videos, you're gonna watch the video with the audio off and then you're gonna minimize the video and play it again with the audio on. Because when you write your, your affidavits, you have to describe what you're seeing and what you're hearing. So there's a way to automate that particular man. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

What normal person could do that and not be completely destroyed?

[Garrett Maxey]

I'm not quite sure I will tell you. I've got my head back together at this point and I feel like I could go do it. I don't know if I actually can or not, but I've worked with guys who've been working that stuff for like, no shit, like over a decade.

[Andy Stumpf]

Here's a fucked up question. Have you ever heard of somebody who specialized in ICAC stuff that ended up actually being one of these predators?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, I have, I have. And I was actually, I was kind of amazed when I put in for this spot that they didn't really screen for like, okay, are you into this stuff?

[Andy Stumpf]

I feel like that should be in the world we live in. I would like to imagine a world where you don't have to ask that question.

[Garrett Maxey]

I would too. I would.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's like saying, hey, do you eat your own shit? Why would anybody ask that? Of course I don't eat my own shit.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, it's. You hear about it and I don't know if it's, I know that it's not super common. Right. But you do hear about it. It's one of those where you always.

[Andy Stumpf]

Hear the negative predator and you wanted to have unfettered access. Holy shit.

[Garrett Maxey]

Well, that's the thing, right? It's the same thing. Like the people who are into kids then, they work at schools, they work at a daycare.

[Andy Stumpf]

They, shockingly enough, they spend time where children are.

[Garrett Maxey]

Imagine that. Yeah, imagine it's. It's like a drug addict hanging out at a flop house. You're going to go, where the dopes at? So it's, it's no different.

[Andy Stumpf]

How did they catch the cop?

[Garrett Maxey]

Gosh, I don't know, but I hope there is, like, if.

[Andy Stumpf]

So you have heard of it though?

[Garrett Maxey]

I have heard of it. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I don't know these people personally. Yeah. I've heard the stories about it, but this is my personal opinion, is if you're. If you're the general Joe public and you're doing this stuff, you need to be treated very harshly. If you're a cop doing this stuff, strip that uniform off because you don't deserve it whatsoever. You're. You're a disgrace, and you should be treated twice as harshly as that person.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, think about the long game that that person would play.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct. To get into that unit.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, not. Not only that. I mean, I would assume that they probably didn't develop a desire for that because they volunteered for that unit. So you probably can imagine that it was even maybe before. Who knows? Lifelong.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

So they bury that and then wear a mask. That's good enough. That they get into law enforcement.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Work their way towards that unit. I mean, that's a long game.

[Garrett Maxey]

It is, it is. And that I get, in a sense, it makes it even more.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's even more up.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes. That you're. You have to play that game that long to get into a unit like that. Because you hear about cops, firemen, politicians, you know, you name it. These people who are put in positions of trust that get caught like a sting. Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Politicians, though. Cops and firemen for sure.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. Never politicians ever, ever.

[Andy Stumpf]

I like the cops or the firemen that are. End up pyromaniacs and they're bored, so they're lighting fires.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man. Dude, how are you supposed to be a hero if you're not putting out fires?

[Andy Stumpf]

Got to make them some goddamn building codes. Just keep getting better with these auto sprinklers sons of. Oh, well, I mean, again, if you were a pyromaniac and you had some intelligence. And again, I'm not trying to give a instruction manual.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But these are the things that I think about when I can't sleep. Like, what would a pyromaniac do if he loved fire? Probably work with fire.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know, he's either a Hollywood pyrotechnic specialist, are probably an FDNY dude. And I don't know why I just said New York, but whatever. That's.

[Garrett Maxey]

There's a lot of firemen there.

[Andy Stumpf]

What was the movie? Backdraft Michael. Which is. I know a movie you haven't seen. Was it Chicago?

[Garrett Maxey]

Seen it, kid.

[Andy Stumpf]

Dude, I swear.

[Garrett Maxey]

Some backdrop, though.

[Andy Stumpf]

He hasn't seen them.

[Garrett Maxey]

I'm not even a fireman. I've seen that multiple times.

[Andy Stumpf]

He hasn't seen the Boondock Saints. Was it Chicago?

[Garrett Maxey]

I can't find it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Unbelievable. Yeah, but bull. Spoiler alert to a 30 year old movie was lighting fires.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Imagine that. Imagine that. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

It doesn't, that doesn't surprise me. I'm surprised that there hasn't been a massive sex ring at either Disneyland or Disney World, to be honest.

[Garrett Maxey]

We just don't know about it yet is my guess. I mean, was there a lot of kids, right, dudes getting hooked at Disneyland or they're, you know. Yeah, they're Disneyland adjacent. Right. They're working there, they're working around Disneyland and you hear about them getting arrested quite a bit. Quite a bit. And it, and it makes sense. And it makes sense. But yeah, man, the dudes that can do it forever, I'm, I'm thankful for them because it's a job that needs to be done. I just was not in a space where I could do it anymore and be any use to anybody or like just not completely lose my shit.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, I have to imagine that those task force, however they're structured, I have to imagine that they understand that there is a limited amount of time where people can tolerate exposure to that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That most people aren't going to do it for a decade or two.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. And it's to my knowledge, it's like one of the few places where you put your name in, you get selected, you go do it, and you can tap out at any time.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, I was going to ask when you went to whoever you needed to go and say, hey, you were done. I'm assuming they didn't like, hey, man, get back in there. Just given the gravity of the subject matter.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, dude, for sure. Like I, it was right before I, I just, I had to call it maybe a week or two before we helped again. This is an adjudicated case, but we helped Homeland Security with a warrant. This guy was producing terrible stuff with son or daughter, I can't remember, but he was sending that material over to an undercover agent on the other side of the country. So they were able to track him back to this little town. HSI hit us up and said, hey, like we need help with this search warrant. We said, yeah, we're there.

[Andy Stumpf]

So does that flip it to federal too, even if it's Internet across state lines?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh, sweet.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. I don't know if you could play that both ways, local or federal. But generally speaking, if you take that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Distribution across state lines.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, we get there and go into this dude's motor. I guess the situation is this guy's going through divorce. Mom and kid live in the house. Dude lives in his motorhome, like on the property. On the property. Like in the driveway. In the driveway. I don't know if mom ever went out. Went out into that motorhome or not, but I mean, it. It was disgusting. And in the back was like, you really. You can't describe it as anything else except for like a, like a child sex dungeon. It was horrific. Like little child sized torsos, you know, that are.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't know.

[Garrett Maxey]

Actually it's. It's a thing. And people advocate for it because they think it's, you know, oh, well, they'll just take it out on that instead of actually seeking children. And that's obviously not the case because this guy got caught doing it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Here's an idea, right? You heard about the explosive pagers for Hamas?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's where my mind goes.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man. A little pressure sensor.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, I got an idea. Let's put about pound and a half of C4 in that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man, I'll tell you what, I. You're never going to touch a kid again.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, that's because you'd be dead. That would just detonate your entire pelvis, which perfect.

[Garrett Maxey]

I, I mean, in this little motorhome, I would imagine just the whole back end being removed.

[Andy Stumpf]

All over the neighborhood.

[Garrett Maxey]

Completely all over the neighborhood.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. So, I mean, that was that. I was already not doing great. Go and do that and seeing that stuff, I'm like, oh, man, I'm not just. Yeah, dude, it was all bad. It was all bad. And then go back into work and there was a video and I'll spare the details, but just infant, you know, being raped. And it was horrific. And it's one of those things, you.

[Andy Stumpf]

Watch it without the audio produced inside of that rv.

[Garrett Maxey]

No, no, this was a separate. Separate case. Sorry, Separate case that I was working and infant is having these terrible things happen to it. And it's like, dude, it's so messed up because you watch these videos without noise and you go, I hope that this kid's dead, because I can't imagine what that's like, you know. And I minimize the video and turn the audio on and this baby is screaming, dude. It was. Yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible. And I did. I ripped off my headset. I. I just walked out of the office and took a drive and I called up my buddy who works child crimes. I was like, dude, I. I can't do this. Anymore, man. Like, I'm not that I was going to do anything to myself. I just. Like, I. I can't. I just can't stand this stuff anymore. And so he was like, hey, man, relax. You're good. Just, bro, pull yourself out. You just. You got to get out of there. And I was like, you're right. So I went to my sergeant's office and just. I was a mess in there, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. And it's the first time that I've ever taken myself off of something in this career, and it sucked because that's all I wanted to do, was go work those kinds of crimes. But I just. I got to a point where I just could not. I was. I. I couldn't function, man. I couldn't function.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did they give you some time off?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah. He's like, hey, take the rest of the week off. Really?

[Andy Stumpf]

A whole three or four days?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Thanks, and Jesus. And I appreciate it. I came in. No, this. Look, that. That My agency. I can't express how awesome they are, really. They. I. I come back in on. It's like a Monday or something for a meeting with the lieutenant, and he's like, look, dude, we. We fully expect for people just to not be okay when they leave this unit, whether they're there for six months or years. Like, do people leave that unit and I've heard have spent time in a facility or they just quit law enforcement? Yeah, man. I mean, it's. It just. It scrambled me to a point like I've never been scrambled before. And it was. That was truly a new feeling for me because I was disabled. I was pretty good tamping everything down, or so I thought. Right. I look back now, and I'm like, no, definitely not. You were good at wearing a mask, but it's like, you weren't that great at it. Yeah, man. So meet with the lieutenant, tells me, yeah, you're out. Don't worry about it. Like, we just need to make sure you're okay. And then went and worked. It was like a juvenile crimes type spot that was. Wasn't too. Too bad. And then we switched over to Special.

[Andy Stumpf]

Skittles Theft Crimes.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Station.

[Garrett Maxey]

And, yeah, it's. You know, it wasn't anything near as. As heavy as that.

[Andy Stumpf]

And then you went to an additional unit. Special Victims Unit.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, man, that's a. That's a step, I'll say back towards that direction separated by some layers for sure. Why did you want to do that?

[Garrett Maxey]

I still wanted to Work crimes with kids. You know, crimes that included child victims, which is, you know, special victims. You're going to work with adult victims, you're going to work with child victims. And don't get me wrong, I've got a huge heart for, you know, the adult victims that I work with too. Huge heart for. For them. But I think anybody would agree, like, it's a whole nother takes on a whole nother meaning when it's a child.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

So getting to work those crimes and still, you know, I'm not. I'm not seeing and viewing this terrible stuff every day. I'm working those types of crimes still. But they're further and fewer between.

[Andy Stumpf]

But how long you been a cop now?

[Garrett Maxey]

Gosh.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or a deputy. Yeah, I know the terms are not interchangeable.

[Garrett Maxey]

I got hired in 2013.

[Andy Stumpf]

All right, so 12 years.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

How does it work in Idaho? Is it a certain number of years or 55?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, it's a. For retirement. Yeah, it's like a rule of 80. So it's like your years of service plus your age. If it makes 80, it's whatever percentage.

[Andy Stumpf]

Of your up way to do that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. I don't. I don't quite understand the math.

[Andy Stumpf]

I would just start that job at 72 then and do eight years.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you might as well, right? I. Yeah. Dude. I'll be the first to admit, I. I should probably look more into the retirement side of things. I feel like it's so far off and it's. It's not. It's 20 years, but it's. It's close enough. I should probably know more about it. I just, you know, I've been putting it off. I should know more about it.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't get time.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is there a way to use technology to reduce the burden on the humans that have to deal with that stuff? Like, I didn't realize you had to watch the video with two different forms or watch it once and then listen to it. There's gotta be a way that no human could do that without scrambling their fucking eggs here.

[Garrett Maxey]

So is there something that could do that? Maybe. Probably. I think it gets. I think it gets dicey. Maybe if you have like a. Almost like an AI system where you're not.

[Andy Stumpf]

It has to reach a legal standard.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. It would have to reach a legal standard. But it's also. If you dump this into an AI system and other people have access to that AI system now you're like disseminating this type of stuff. I see. I don't know. I would imagine we now have like a code for AI generated csam, which is great because that's becoming a more prevalent issue.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. So is it possible penalty is less for that because it's not an actual human?

[Garrett Maxey]

I don't know if it's that it's less, but I think the threshold to reach it is more.

[Andy Stumpf]

God, I had not thought about the difference of it actually being a human victim versus AI generated.

[Garrett Maxey]

And there's still arguments going on about that. Right. Because some people are like, you know, oh, well, it's not, it's not a real person, so it shouldn't be a real desire, though. It's a real desire. So the way the, the code's written for, like, enticement. Right. If I'm working undercover as a kid and somebody reaches out to me, I'm not a real kid, but they showed up to have sex with me.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

There's, there's. It, it's not gonna change.

[Andy Stumpf]

I do like those YouTube videos where the people get busted in Walmart and they try to run, they're screaming, help me, help me. It's like, we're about to help you.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, what's crazy, though, is.

[Andy Stumpf]

That some civilians are doing that, like full vigilante style.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Not advisable.

[Garrett Maxey]

Not advisable. Like. Okay, yeah. Actually, I'm glad you brought that up because we're. Dude, it's happening all over the place. And I will say this, it's a Rose and Thorn moment. The rose is you're putting yourself between a real child and one of these predators.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And that's. That's awesome.

[Andy Stumpf]

Thorn is you're not a cop.

[Garrett Maxey]

The thorn is you're not a cop. And you're probably not going to meet the, you know, Fourth Amendment standard for this to actually hold up in court. So there's a whole lot of training that goes into doing those undercover chats. And all you're really doing, if you go, you catch this guy in a Walmart parking lot, you smack him in the face and send him on his way, and you get a million likes on YouTube. That's cool. But you just made a smarter pedophile. He's going to go, oh, man, I fell for that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is that enough? Let's say somebody does that, they go to Walmart, they tackle the Dukes. I've seen a video like this. Law enforcement eventually shows up.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't. It's like, citizens arrest. Fuck. I guess. I don't know. Is there enough probable cause for you guys to start looking into that behavior. Can you just, you know what I mean? Like.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Can you take the word, like this guy was, I'm here, he was supposed to meet my 12 year old sister. They could show you that. Is that enough PC to get you guys looking in that direction of that person?

[Garrett Maxey]

Dude, I would say so would I take that person to jail? I don't know.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was going to say, cuz if you don't take him to jail, he might change his behavior and get the out of there.

[Garrett Maxey]

Sure. But I think on the, on the other side is when you do take someone to jail, like you're, you're, your clock starts.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

If I can take a report, take this weirdo's name down, all of his information, hand it off to a detective.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's what I'm saying. Could they start looking at. Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

So I would say that that's, that's probably how I would go. Like, let's. I can't take this dude's chats, some random dude from whatever platform and hand into a prosecutor and be like, sure hope this is good enough. That's not going to fly. But if I can, you know, if you're a patrol cop and you get one of these and you write it as like an information only type thing, whatever, and you hand it off and maybe an investigation can start that way. I think that's a lot safer. I think that's. You're gonna have a better chance of this flying in court because now you're not using Fruit of the poisonous tree. Right?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. As much as I appreciate the, and to understand the headspace of the vigilante video.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh yeah, yeah. It's tough. It's tough. And I, I'm so torn. Right. Because I'm, I'm. Same boat. I'm like, this is just. Who, who doesn't like watching that? Right? Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

The reality is though, like you said, it might get a bunch of likes. Nothing may be happening to that person. It may be the cracking the door and finally the spotlight is put onto them.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right. But yeah, my concern is like, you know, it's like fishing, right. You throw a lure in the water, you're throwing flies in the water. And the fisher, they could start recognizing what's, what's food and what's not food.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

You're gonna start training these people. You know, they talk with enough people who are trying to get a gotcha moment.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

They're gonna start finding out like, okay, what's real and what's not. And that to me is what's Scary, because we don't really get a whole. We don't get a whole lot of chances for proactive work and sex crimes against kids. We can put together a team and go, all right, cool. Hey, this night we're gonna have. Have, you know, four or five dudes chatting online with these weirdos, and we'll have a house that they're supposed to show up to and a takedown team. Boom.

[Andy Stumpf]

Those videos are also amazing.

[Garrett Maxey]

And they're. They're great.

[Andy Stumpf]

Right, but that's also law enforcement on the other side of the door.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct? Yeah. There's a penal code section that says, hey, if we end up whooping someone's ass, like, we're good as long as it's justified.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, and they're also living in, you know, silver bracelets.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

So something is immediately going to happen to them.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct. Yeah, correct. But that's. Did you take. You take 10 to jail in a night? That's awesome. That's a great night. You're not even putting a dent in the population, though. That's the problem. So it's not like you send a team of street cops out there and go, hey, this area has been having a lot of burglaries or a lot of dope, and we're just gonna go rape and pillage, take everything to jail. It doesn't work like that. So the opportunity for proactive work on the sex crime side is really difficult. So we can't. We can't make smarter pedophiles. We really got to be careful about that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, I mean, I wanted. I want to ask you. I'm curious. I don't know how you could answer this question, though, without educating people. And that is. I'm just fascinated by the level of sophistication. There has to be probably a case or a person that sticks out of, like, holy shit. Had never thought of that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I don't know how to. You could even talk about that without educating people or giving somebody an idea. Yeah, but have you found in that predator pool highly intelligent, highly sophisticated people that have gotten away with this for a long time?

[Garrett Maxey]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Andy Stumpf]

Was it a. Broadly. Was it a stupid, small mistake that they made that got them on your radar, or was it somebody else? Was it a tip? I mean, the.

[Garrett Maxey]

The couple that come to mind. And these weren't my cases. These are cases from dudes who are. I mean, if I could be half the cop that they are, I'd be doing pretty good. But chatting with them, it's a mixture of both. It's a little bit of luck on the law enforcement side. And it's also. Yeah, they, they made. They made a mistake. Yeah, they made a mistake. But here's the thing is, like, we all use the same Internet, right? We all use the same Dark Web. Like, it's not like, I mean, I've.

[Andy Stumpf]

Heard of the Dark Web and the onion round here. Or like, I don't fuck. That means dude.

[Garrett Maxey]

And there's so much to it. Like, if I tried to tell you what it is.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Everyone in this room would leave more confused because I can't articulate it quite right.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's like an Internet that's not an Internet through a browser. That's not a browser. I'm already like, I gotta go.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, dude. Yeah. Exactly. That was one of my first questions when I went to icat, was, hey, do I need to be a computer nerd to work this unit? And they go, no, you need to be an investigator. We, the nerds are over there. Perfect. Yes, perfect.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

All right, cool.

[Andy Stumpf]

I have immediately disqualified myself if I have to understand that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. I, I went and put myself through a bunch of training through ICAC's training portal. I'm like, this is an IP address and it looks like this and it's just, I mean, Barney style.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Breaking it down.

[Andy Stumpf]

I know what IP address stands for.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't know what the it means.

[Garrett Maxey]

It's, it's, it's. All of it is so confusing.

[Andy Stumpf]

I know it's some numbers. I know it stands for Internet protocol.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. I still hit up dudes from that unit. I'm like, I have this. What does it mean? And they're like, let me take your hand.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And just lead you.

[Andy Stumpf]

Me with my father and his pictures.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I'm the dude. I'm my dad in this scenario when it comes to that type of stuff.

[Garrett Maxey]

And most people are. But there's people who are really, really good at it. Right. Bad guys and good guys. So I guess the, the moral, the story is like, yeah, you can. You can try and hide your identity through using the Dark Web, but that's only going to work for so long. You. You're eventually going to get caught, I think is the. Is the moral of the story on this one. Like, I, I don't want people to think that I can just get away with doing what, whatever. On the Dark Web, there's a. You can hide a little bit. But yeah, you're eventually going to get found, man. You're eventually going to get found. We all Use the same Internet. We're all using the same, you know, not all of us, but.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

The people using the Dark Web, it's all the same.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. All right, so there are some savants and super high level sophisticated people.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

What's the dumbest criminal you've ever come across? Because there's got to be the other side of the bell curve.

[Garrett Maxey]

Gosh, there's. There is definitely the other side of the bell curve. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And generally they think they're the smart ones. That's one of my favorite features of these people.

[Garrett Maxey]

I. I would say, like, low level. Right. Especially now working in Idaho. It cracks me up. You get people from Oregon where they're like. It sounds like they're almost handing out heroin and meth. They're like, we have too much heroin and meth. Please take this.

[Andy Stumpf]

I've heard Oregon has taken another look at their decriminalization policy.

[Garrett Maxey]

I sure hope so.

[Andy Stumpf]

Almost as if decriminalizing everything solves nothing, right?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, imagine that. Right. But you got these people with heroin, meth. Heroin's thing of the past now. Fentanyl, meth, that type of thing. And they roll into Idaho and they get stopped and their car gets tossed, and you find all this stuff, and they're like, I thought we were good. That stopped over there, man. That was about 80 miles, 90 miles that way, dog. That's. That's not gonna fly here. And then they go to jail for possession.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

I mean, those people, to me, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think I can one up that apparently this is not uncommon. And I bet you've encountered this. And this is again through my local buddies. They roll somebody up, okay. In their pockets is a shit ton of whatever, and they say, well, these aren't my pants.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh, yeah, dude, have you ever heard that one? My wife.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

Apparently, it's incredibly common.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Like.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, sir or ma'am, whose fucking pants are these?

[Garrett Maxey]

Well, that's the thing. That's crazy that somebody else's pants fit you so well, first off. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

They've been worn so well. And you're.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, your Zinn.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was gonna say dip, but your little zin thing is just worn through. And it's weird that your wallet has the exact same imprint on these. Yeah, These aren't my pants.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. In my whole life, I've never worn somebody else's pants. So I think at this point, I mean, cops has been around since the late 80s.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

I think that's. People still try it. It doesn't work. I think we're on to you at this point. Yeah, we're pretty sure that those are indeed your pants.

[Andy Stumpf]

Probably. I think they are too.

[Garrett Maxey]

You might have fooled us back then in the 80s, but. Oh, man, I don't know.

[Andy Stumpf]

My buddies tell me that happens all the time.

[Garrett Maxey]

All the time. And I think it's a pain.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's not my car. Yeah, it's registered to you?

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, yeah. Or they do like the tweaker car shuffle. They're like, oh, no. So I picked this car up last week from my girl and yeah, blah, blah, blah. You try and call them and this is a disconnected number and you can't figure out whose car it is. And like. All right, well, you're going to jail for something. We just haven't found it yet.

[Andy Stumpf]

All right, so let's reverse engineer this and think about this from the perspective of probably, I would say from the lens of the parents more than the minor, because I feel like I have more listeners that are of age than are of age. Given what you've seen, where would you start, parents on keeping their kids safe? Er, I'm not going to use the word safe. I'm going to say safer.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, I mean that's, that's a great way to put it because unfortunately, like Nothing, nothing is 100%.

[Andy Stumpf]

There's risk to everything if they leave your house.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, there's risk.

[Andy Stumpf]

But let's be honest, if you have a large family and they come over for Thanksgiving, they may not be safe even inside of your own house.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Depending. So safe.

[Garrett Maxey]

Er, yeah, I think, dude, honestly, like, let's start out with what, what's free? What's going to cost you? Nothing. It's just conversations. Conversations with your kids. As in like, hey, from when they're super young. These are your private parts. Nobody touches them but you or mommy and daddy when we're giving you a bath or helping you go potty or anything like that. But other than that, like nobody and just being, you know, keep drilling that into their head.

[Andy Stumpf]

Have you found that with victims that is something, a conversation that is often not had?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah. Or is that. It definitely happens.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was gonna say, is it. Or is that a barrier that a family member might be able to break their way through? Because from a stranger, I see what you're saying, like a stranger. That seems like it could be a harder barrier.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

And not that it should be a softer barrier, but we're talking about non fully formed brains. Family. Oh, he hugs mom and dad. You know what I mean? This is uncle so and so.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, I would. I see exactly what you're asking. I think you're right on the money because there is a.

[Andy Stumpf]

Not the parent shouldn't do it. I'm just curious if that's a more malleable barrier for a known quantity.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, there's definitely a difference between the neighbor touching you inappropriately and maybe a family member that. It's still weird. Still not. Right? And these kids are, they're not, they're not dumb. They go, whoa. Right. Yeah, this is really weird. But it's, it's Uncle Bob, you know, so maybe they don't say anything for a while. But at the same point, I mean, you do have, you do have the kids who, you know, when they're super young kids are gonna act out what's done on them, right? So you get the kid at school that's touching the other kids inappropriately and the teacher pulls them aside and goes, hey, you know, those are our private parts. Nobody touches them but us, yada, yada, yada. Yeah. The kid goes, oh, well, daddy does that to me and makes me do it to him. Right? So.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh my God, I can't even fathom being a teacher on the receiving.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm assuming that's a mandatory report in state.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So in that case, it's like it's almost normal for that kid, right? He's, he's just saying, well, I think it's okay to do it because it happens to me.

[Andy Stumpf]

Are they generally open about saying that or is that something you have to.

[Garrett Maxey]

Claw out of them? I think it depends on the kid. I think it depends on the kid because some of them, you, you talk to them or have, you know, they go in for a forensic interview and they just blah everything.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, they probably think it's or it's been conditioned into them that it's normal, so I wouldn't talk about it.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, exactly. And then others, you, it's, you really got to pry it out of them. I think, I think that depends on the kid. But as you, as kids start getting older, because, you know, I have seen like 5 year olds with cell phones, which blows my mind. But as kids start getting older, that conversation starts shifting to like, hey, you're going to be trusted with a little bit more freedom. Maybe we're going to give you a phone, maybe, maybe we're not. But your friends are going to have phones and, you know, they might show you some really bad stuff. You know, they might show you pornography on their phone. And this is what, this is what Pornography is. And it's not okay. Or this is, you know, even drugs, like you just buy drugs off of Snapchat these days. Right?

[Andy Stumpf]

So I've heard this. Never tried it, but I heard it.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Because I don't have Snapchat nor do I want it.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or tiki talkie.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you name it. We could probably, I'm not familiar with this area, but we could probably find someone to sell us dope.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I have had people on the show who specialize in that and they did a little research before coming on the episode and trust me, anything could possibly want is for sale.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man, absolutely. But I. Dude, those conversations are, are make or break and it's creating that trust. Or, you know, your kid's always going to be better at technology than you are. So be curious about what they have. Hey, can you show me how that works? Can you show me this, that and the other? They're probably going to, they're probably going to show you. Kids are also sneaky though. So like we talked about burner phones, we talked about all these different things. I mean, kids are curious, kids are sneaky.

[Andy Stumpf]

I worry sometimes you hear parents say, well, I'm going to have an electronics free household to a certain degree or to a certain age. But if they go to school with people that have smartphones, they have access to a smartphone.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct.

[Andy Stumpf]

And it's so easy to. Oh, in this little bubble of the world that we can control. This doesn't exist with my own kids. The older they got, the more influence their social circle had and it was competing at best. Probably the kids had more influence over them at a certain age than I did and they've heard me say the same thing over and over again. But they're like, shut the up, dad.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But yeah, go ahead and take a smartphone away from your kid or don't give them one. If they're ever unsupervised with their friends who have a smartphone, I hate to tell you, they're looking up shit or exposed to stuff you don't want them to see.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Oh, dude, for sure. And I mean, here's the thing is, you know, I tell people this quite often is you, you give your kid this phone with access to the Internet and now they've got access to the whole world.

[Andy Stumpf]

Which world has access to them?

[Garrett Maxey]

Exactly, exactly. And maybe you take their phone away, but their friend has it. And same thing happens where, you know, they're being exposed this terrible stuff. Or these people who have Access to your kid's friend. Now have access to your kid because they're hanging out in the same circle, they're all going to be doing the same. The same things. So I think that's where it's really. You just gotta have those conversations and drill it into them like, this is not okay. And you are going to see these things. It's not an if. It's. You are going to see these things. And I. I can only do so much. So you need to be aware of this, be aware that it's not okay, and be aware that you can come and talk to me about anything. I mean, something we haven't covered yet is like the sextortion side of things.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was just gonna say I have tried to hammer into my kids.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That the Internet is forever. Anything that you ever type into your phone, regardless of how pissed you are, how upset you are, you should, at some point in time, think at a job interview, somebody's going to slide something across the table and say, is this yours? Yeah, it lives forever. Pictures, random thoughts you want to type away on, whatever.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

It doesn't disappear. And you have to remember that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, Snapchat's one of those where Everybody says it's 10 seconds and.

[Andy Stumpf]

It'S gone until you get a warrant.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, exactly. So you get a warrant. Exactly. And then we go. Actually, it's. It's kind of forever. Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, this extortion type thing, it's. We're seeing a lot of. How do I put this? We're seeing the rate of teenage suicide skyrocket, and we're also seeing sextortion skyrocket. I can't say that those two things are.

[Andy Stumpf]

Might not be causal, but they're probably correlated.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct. And NCMEC put out a report about that. And I want to say it was 20, 23, but don't quote me on it. They said, hey, we can only confirm that 20 teen suicides were because of. Not only. Right.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Only 20 suicides are because of sextortion. And then they go, but we believe it's a lot higher.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. It could be a flawed reporting system.

[Garrett Maxey]

It could be a flawed reporting system. Or it's, hey, this kid didn't leave a note behind saying why this happened. Yeah, but you look into, you know, their phone while you're doing the investigation and go, well, yeah, there's sextortion behind it. I can't say this is the exact reason this kid did this.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, but it exists.

[Garrett Maxey]

But it exists. Yeah, right. So I have a hard time believing that those two numbers just aren't related, you know, in some form or fashion. So having those conversations with your kid about, like, this is. You might be exposed to this. Somebody might hit you up, and you make a poor decision because we're all human beings and we all make poor decisions. And you send that photo, and it's actually not some cute blonde girl you're talking to. It's. It's a dude. And he's gonna start hitting you up for money and hounding you and hounding you and hounding you. And that's when you need to stop what you're doing and come tell mom and dad. And mom and dad, take the phone. Don't erase anything. Just keep it as is and give us a call. Call the cops. If it's somebody that's overseas, we might be able to do something that we would hope, right? Somebody here on the state side. Absolutely. Because your kid's not the only person that's happening to. They're talking to kids all over the country, and it's rising at this insane rate. And the pressure that it's putting on kids, it's like, yeah, how. How do you. How do you deal with that? Like, shame I can't go tell my mom about this.

[Andy Stumpf]

But you can.

[Garrett Maxey]

But you can, but you can. And you.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, at the young age or early teen years, your. Your optic on time is the end of the day is the longest amount of time anybody's ever lived.

[Garrett Maxey]

Absolutely.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I'll never make my way through this. I'm going to be embarrassed forever.

[Garrett Maxey]

This is.

[Andy Stumpf]

All the people are. No, that's. None of that shit's true.

[Garrett Maxey]

None of that's true. None of that's true. And I talk to parents who, you know, I get a report on my desk and it's, hey, you know, Johnny was talking with this girl who he thought was a girl, sends a picture of himself to her, and the extortion portion starts, right? The parents freak out, which is completely understandable. I'd be in the same boat. And they call us and we go, hey, like, relax. We got this. The only person that's in trouble here is the guy talking to your kid. Your kid's not in any sort of trouble. We don't want them to feel pressured in any sort of way. Like, this is the time where we back it up a little bit. Let's have, you know, let's have a cool, calm conversation about how we, you know, fix this, how we don't run into this Issue again, Right. A little bit of a tangent, but one of the ways that you fix this is through neck mechanics, and they've got a program called Take it Down. And it's this awesome program where, hey, I sent this photo of myself and I really screwed up. Right. You can take that photo, you drop it off to neck mech, and then they do their best to scrub it from the Internet.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, that's probably using some AI and looking for that and the digital signature of the picture.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yes, exactly.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's a beautiful use for that type of AI.

[Garrett Maxey]

It is. It is. So. And like any. If you're a kid listening to this or you're a parent listening to this, and. And this happens to you, like, it's gonna suck. That's not a fun position to be in. But you've got a whole law enforcement agency behind you. You've got neck mech there. You've got these options. So have those conversations with your kids, because it's like, legit. Could save their life. It could save their life. Like, we've all been teenagers before.

[Andy Stumpf]

Thank God I didn't have a phone, dude. Well, and, I mean, I noticed Michael taking notes off the corner of my eye. He's like, takeitdown.com. it's like, son of a bitch. I finally have a route to freedom there.

[Garrett Maxey]

There is an adult version for Take it Down also.

[Andy Stumpf]

Again, he's got his pencil out. Just.

[Garrett Maxey]

I don't remember that. I'm on the website right now. I'm not even joking. He's just.

[Andy Stumpf]

He's just airdropping. Shit. I could get this one, then this one and this one. Yeah. What is the. There has to be some lore in the ICAC world of people working in that. What is the most prolific case of predator targeting? Oh, man, there's got to be some ones that are just, like. Like, unbelievable. Scope size or scale?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, you know, I. This probably is. I couldn't tell you. Like, across the country, like, this is the be all, end all case.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

But from. From the unit that I worked at. I mean, you got guys. The dudes have been there for a long time. They have that one case where it's like, hey, this started out with a single image dropped into, like, Bing or whatever.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And we had almost no information, and we start working it, and then we come across thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of files. Or, gosh, there's one case. The detectives did an amazing job on it. Where it started out started as a cyber tip. I believe I could be wrong on that. But it was just one victim. They tracked this guy down. Long story short, this guy was talking to kids on some gaming platform and then would move them over to another platform, and then they. He would basically get them to start taking their clothes off. And he was recording everything. And he had like five, like. Like hard copies of everything that he was recording. And he would, like, this is a.

[Andy Stumpf]

Guy'S full time job. Like, he's spending his entire day doing this.

[Garrett Maxey]

Like, we're talking, gosh, I want to say 60 victims. It's probably north of that of all these kids. Right. That he was able to get to a point where they're taking off their clothes and exposing themselves or getting them to bring in a friend or a young family member and abuse them. So. And we. There's victims from all over the country. All over the country. My cousin, who's working Special Victims at the time, actually worked on this case that originated out of Idaho, and he. My cousin was working down in Southern California. So there's just victims everywhere. Everywhere. That guy got some insane, insane sentencing. Like he'll never see the light of day again.

[Andy Stumpf]

Good. He should not get a radio.

[Garrett Maxey]

No, probably not.

[Andy Stumpf]

No tuna. Extra tuna rations for him.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

No, if somebody needs to be just. But that dude. Until Elon Musk calls him for advice on his tunneling company. And even then, in my mind, that's not enough.

[Garrett Maxey]

Probably not. Yeah, probably not. But you reap what you sow, right? You reap what you sow. You know. You know that people who commit those crimes don't do well in prison. You went and did it anyways.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, I'm very happy that they don't do that in prison.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do you think? If you could lay out the rest of your career, what kind of stuff do you want to do? Do you think you'll stay in the SVU stuff, or do you look ahead two and a half year, five year, ten year?

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, I mean, looking ahead, I. I really like the leadership aspect. I remember being, you know, just a boot cop and looking up at, like, some of my sergeants going, I want to do that one day, like, lead a team and go out there and be proactive and. And that kind of thing. So I think in the next, you know, two to five years promoting and then, yeah, hopefully kind of finding out from there that you promote and it opens up all these different doors and, you know, I can't say for certain what I want to do.

[Andy Stumpf]

I didn't realize all the different task force jobs that were Available interagency stuff. I didn't get that until I became friends with some guys locally. I was like, you're doing what? You guys are doing what you're attached to who? Like, okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's a lot more than people would think, just sitting in a patrol car.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do the sheriffs call their vehicles?

[Garrett Maxey]

Is it a patrol car, like a radio car? That's what I've always called it.

[Andy Stumpf]

They're in trucks. What would you just call it? A patrol truck or. Gosh, I guess suburbans or.

[Garrett Maxey]

Some people call it the shop. Sitting in my shop.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. I don't know. But that's.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's kind of where buddy of mine watches a lot of Netflix in his shop.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, exactly. Hey, man, if it's 2 in the morning, usually what he's doing. Yeah. Ain't nobody moving around.

[Andy Stumpf]

Fuck.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. You're just trying to make it to the end of your shift.

[Andy Stumpf]

What would you change if you could. If you're king for a day in law enforcement, what would you change about the occupation?

[Garrett Maxey]

That's a great question. I guess the first thing I would change and knowing that, that it is actively changing is the culture around mental health. That's the. That's what I would change right up front. The. The place I'm at right now does an amazing job, in my opinion. I think they do a great job. And the place that I was at before, the other agency in Idaho did a phenomenal job. Los Angeles County, I love that agency. The culture does not, like I said, that's changing.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, that's like a battleship changing, though. It takes a lot of spins of the wheel for the compass to move a degree or two.

[Garrett Maxey]

Absolutely. And the agency themselves, I mean, there's a ton of like county shrinks and all they do is handle cops. Right. They're hired by the county for the county, and that's it. And in their families, I believe. But the problem is the culture just, hey, you're a pussy. If you go talk to them, you're a pussy. And so it makes it difficult, man. Like, I'm not afraid to admit that I went to a really, really, really bad place. I was two years, give or take in a patrol, and you don't really fit in with like the brand new guys, but you don't really fit in with like the OG cops. And you're just seeing nasty, terrible stuff all the time. And blowing off smoke is, you know, or blown off steam is drinking too much. And I can't do anything else. I. All I know is being a cop, but I, I don't feel like I can sustain this anymore.

[Andy Stumpf]

So that's a super dangerous lie when people, they tell themselves they can't do anything else.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, it is.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or the sunken cost fallacy where I've been doing this for a decade. I can't start over. You have no idea where your life could be. If I've had to reinvent myself multiple times because I'm an idiot and don't think about my future very much.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I put myself in these places where like, well, I guess I better figure this shit out real fast. And then you look back a few years later and you realize I didn't. None of these opportunities that I have now would have even been possible had I stayed the path I was on.

[Garrett Maxey]

Right, right. And that's not always the case.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm not trying to paint a rainbow picture for people of ah, it, let's just reinvent. I'm not saying that.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But if you need to just don't lie to yourself and say you can't do anything else.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man. And super tragic. I mean we've seen it happen. I just had a partner that I worked with down there, took his own life and it sounds like it was that same like I've got 15 years on. I can't believe. And go somewhere else. But, but you can. We're so short staffed and I'm working, you know, I'm maxed out on overtime mandatory. They can't sustain it. And I mean 20, 23, there was, it was a 24 hour period and four LA county, their two deputies and two civilian employees killed themselves in a 24 hour period.

[Andy Stumpf]

If that doesn't set off alarm bells institutionally, I don't know what would all over the news.

[Garrett Maxey]

But yeah, you know, as it should be. But you go, okay, there's four and 24 hours and that's terrifying. But then you look at.

[Andy Stumpf]

And that's in one county.

[Garrett Maxey]

And that's in one county. Yeah. I think LA county that year, I want to say had like 13 or more suicides. And at what point do you go man, we've got like a serious issue. The county did their job. They've got all these shrinks on, on site. It's, it's, it's a cultural thing. Yeah. So like dude, if you're, if you're struggling, like bro, go get help. It takes a strong man to actually go get the help that they need.

[Andy Stumpf]

Because if you're just asking for help is a sign of strength. Not a sign of weakness.

[Garrett Maxey]

Absolutely. And I wish. I wish I went and did that way sooner. I would have saved myself a lot of heartache, man. A lot of heartache. I would have saved my family a lot of heartache. Like, it's. I'm just gonna sit there and I'm gonna suck it up and you know, well, that. That only works for so long before it starts spilling over. And, yeah, it's. And it's never, ever, ever good.

[Andy Stumpf]

I agree.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, man, we've been at it a few hours. Your wife is probably waiting for you at the coffee shop. What do you want to close it out with?

[Garrett Maxey]

Nothing's ever going to be 100 safe if you're a parent. Like, don't think that the boogeyman's around every single corner, right? And you gotta allow your kids some freedom.

[Andy Stumpf]

But don't think he doesn't exist either.

[Garrett Maxey]

But don't think he doesn't exist, right? Like, if your kid's got a cell phone, and none of this is aimed at trying to tell you how to parent your kids. None of it. But if your kid has a cell phone, maybe it's a good idea to just, hey, we're gonna charge that and it's gonna be up in my room. Or, you know, you leave a kid in the middle of the night with their cell phone, they're probably gonna do something that they're gonna regret later. There's different options out there for cell phones. I'm not sponsored by any of them, but, like, bark, Pinwheel, anything like that.

[Andy Stumpf]

They design phones for that. Are there any good state or federal, like, resources or websites you would point parents at for educational.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, absolutely. So missingkids.org is Neckmec.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Garrett Maxey]

Dude, they've got stuff for kids. They've got stuff for parents. They'll come out, they'll do training. If you own a restaurant, you own a coffee shop, you own clothing store, whatever it is. They do a program called Code Adam. And it's basically just a protocol for, like, if a kid goes missing in. In your store or around your store, like, hey, everybody's trained up on what to do. We're gonna call the cops immediately. Give me a description of the kid. Get me a photo. We're gonna have all that lined out so that we can get this kid A, found faster, or B, let's put him in the system as fast as we can. I mean, most. Most missing kid situations, the parents go and. Which is completely understandable. They go and they look for a couple hours and Go. Oh, God. He's like, really gone. Gone.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

And then call.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's enough to be over state lines.

[Garrett Maxey]

Correct? Correct. You know, God forbid something like actually happened or even like, you know, you find kids in lakes and canals and that kind of thing, and it's terrible. Yeah. If. I guess what I last point is, if you're a parent, God forbid something happens to your kid, what do you do?

[Andy Stumpf]

You kill everybody.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Well, it comes with some legal issues, but we could try and work around it.

[Andy Stumpf]

I guess I'm just shooting from the hip here.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, it's your. Your natural instinct as a parent is to go, oh, my God, tell me everything. Right. That's. It's gonna be really hard to do this, but call the cops, get a very basic story, and then let the investigators investigate. Because if. If we ask too many questions up front and we don't get a great interview in, or this kid comes across looking like they were coached even though they weren't, that's going to be really hard on the court side. And we don't want people who abuse kids to get away with any of this stuff because. Small ticky tack nonsense.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, that makes sense. Cool, man. I'm not going to bother. I mean, I know you're still active, so you probably don't want to put out your social handle or a way for people to get a hold of you.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, you know, I. I'm not affiliated. Yeah, I'll throw it out there. The. On instagram code word.north star. It's not affiliated with any agency. Anybody who goes and checks it out. I'm terrible, terrible with social media. So it's.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'll link you up with my dad. He could be your manager.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, dude, perfect.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's. That's my dad's retirement job.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Social run. My account manager.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, really good idea.

[Andy Stumpf]

I will legitimately pitch that to him today and I bet I can get him to say yes. And I bet I could find him a client or two.

[Garrett Maxey]

Perfect.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, he'll start with Debbie, which is his wife. Cool, man. Well, thank you for coming out, dude.

[Garrett Maxey]

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, I think we did a good job of not educating predators and hopefully giving parents some good ideas.

[Garrett Maxey]

That's the name of the game, man. I. I'm trying to put some sort of training together. I. The gym that I roll at in Idaho.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh, jiu jitsu player.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Well, okay, let me put it this way. I suck. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Welcome to the fucking club, Michael. And I suck too. Michael. Sucks more than me, but more than most people, actually.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, bro, like, I guess.

[Andy Stumpf]

What, you're never gonna master it and there's always somebody out there that has your number.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, 100%. I found that out real quick.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, it's a fucking rough intro. It is a rough intro.

[Garrett Maxey]

It is, man. I started at 30. I'm like, I really wish I started this earlier.

[Andy Stumpf]

I started at 41.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Garrett Maxey]

Well, good for you. Good for you, though.

[Andy Stumpf]

It was from my buddy who was a cop who wouldn't shut the up about Jiu Jitsu.

[Garrett Maxey]

Nice.

[Andy Stumpf]

He got his blue belt shortly after I started. He is still a blue belt.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's how often he comes to class.

[Garrett Maxey]

It'd be like that sometimes. Hey, listen, shift work sucks. All right.

[Andy Stumpf]

What was the last time? I'm not going to use any names. So, like a hypothetical, like, when was the last time you saw Nelson in class? Was it last year? Definitely last year. Well, he blew his knee out.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't help.

[Andy Stumpf]

But before that I hadn't seen eight months.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, it's been a while.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was at his blue belt Iron man as a one stripe white belt.

[Garrett Maxey]

Belt.

[Andy Stumpf]

The still blue belt.

[Garrett Maxey]

It'd be like that sometimes, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

But you know what he says? He's like, I know enough. I can handle most people.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I just, I want to entice him. I need to figure. I need to steal a car and figure out. Get him to pull me over. There's a lot of ways this could go south and I could get shot and killed.

[Garrett Maxey]

Oh, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

But I need to. I want to tackle him and just beat the out of him.

[Garrett Maxey]

Dude, if you yell a tickle fight and then he shoots you, you got a great case on your hand.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, I don't know. It's not a good shot either. Probably miss.

[Garrett Maxey]

I don't know how to help you. I don't know how to help you. But yeah, man. Trying to put out trainings and just get in front of as many parents as possible.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think that's the way.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, that's. That's the only way we get in front of this y. Because on the law, we're. We're reacting to a lot of stuff. It's. Something bad's already happened. So the prevention is going to be up to parents.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. It's an uphill battle for sure.

[Garrett Maxey]

Yeah, man. Cool.

[Andy Stumpf]

Let's get back. Get you back to your wife.

[Garrett Maxey]

Cool. Thanks, brother.

[Andy Stumpf]

Of course, marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.