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[00:00]
A
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[00:31]
B
He's a retired police chief from the Nevada California Police Department, also a prolific author. He's here to talk about a peculiar case where an ordinary couple was kidnapped which led the arrest of three. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guest talking about their experiences, their realities of investigating crimes. Police plus those who've experienced horrendous trauma. Police, first responders, military and victims of crime share their stories. Hi, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website, letradio.com and also like us on Facebook, search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. Joining us on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show from California we have Brian Brady, repeat guest. He was on the show a long time ago and he's had a long, lengthy police career where he retired hired as a police chief from Nevada California Police Department. He's also a prolific author. He's written multiple books. You can get more details about all of his books@goldengatetails.com that's goldengatetails.com his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep. Brian, thanks for your service and thanks for talking about this on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show. Very much appreciate it.
[01:51]
C
Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
[01:53]
B
It's good to have you back. We're going to talk about something that, you know, I look back on my police career that I handled pretty much everything. But one thing I did not handle was kidnapping or what we call at least in Maryland abductions, you had that quite that was very rare.
[02:10]
C
Yeah, I agree with you. It's, it's an unusual case and a lot of times it's a child and by the time you unravel it, more often than not it's a parental abduction as opposed to a real kidnapping. But you have to treat them all the same.
[02:28]
B
You do.
[02:29]
C
And so yeah, you don't want to be somebody who poo poos the initial report. Then you find out the child was actually abducted by some serial Killer. So you pour the time and effort into it. In this case, it was an older person who was abducted. And so the case was a little bit different than your child. Grab.
[02:51]
B
Well, before we go into details of that, you retired as a police chief very quickly. When did you start your career? Where did you go? Because if my memory is correct, you served in a lot of different agencies in different rules than we have in Maryland.
[03:06]
C
Well, I worked in two different states, primarily California. I'm from San Francisco. I was born and raised. So I started my career with Berkeley and spent nine years with Berkeley and then took a open competitive exam to be lieutenant down in East LA and went to work in city of Baldwin Park. About 85,000 people in East LA, stayed there about two years and then took a captain's test for Farmington, New Mexico and went out there for four years, took another captain's test for Nevada, came back to California in the Bay Area. And then after 10 years, I was appointed to police chief and served 12 years as police chief.
[03:49]
B
You've had a long career.
[03:52]
C
It is a little over 35 years. And then I left law enforcement and went into the private side. And I spent the next 12 years working executive level corporate security. I spent 10 years at NBC Universal in Los Angeles and then another year at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where we were putting together the new museum.
[04:11]
B
Well, truth be told, and this is where I want you to be truthful. Look, I love my police career. I really do. However, radio is far less stressful. It's a lot more work. It's a lot different work, but I'm a happier guy. Are you happier doing what you're doing now, being an author and doing what you're doing?
[04:32]
C
I don't know if I'm happier. I mean, I like both. I think they both had ups and downs. The thing that I don't have right now that I did have for most of my career is being on call 24 7. When you're the police chief, you know you're on call when something bad happens, you get notified. So it doesn't make any difference what time it is. And when you're with a company like NBC or with Universal Studios, you're 24 hour. Because we have productions all over the world frequently, you know, they don't think about time differences when they call you about a problem. So I didn't. I mean, I accepted that as part of the job. But now I get to sleep through the night. I appreciate that.
[05:19]
B
It is nice. And how about having the weekends and holidays off.
[05:23]
C
Yeah, that's. That's. That's a nice break, the studio, because we also have, as part of our little empire down there, we have Universal Studios Hollywood, which is the theme park. So the theme park, you know, was a 20. Well, not 24 7, because it did close at midnight. But it was a busy place, you know, seven days a week. So you frequently had, you know, as you pointed out, the weekend calls.
[05:55]
B
Well, one thing, I look back, and there's a lot I miss about policing. And my career was different from yours. I got promoted sergeant, and I got hurt and retired very young. I was 33 when I was retired, so I didn't want to leave as early as I did. But that's. That's the hand I was dealt. And I'm not pun intended, because it's a hand injury. And if you look very closely, you'll see it's my right hand and multiple steel plates put in and multiple surgeries and all this stuff. And I thought I sprained my wrist and I was gone. But it took a while to find my new career. And radio has been something that, I'll be honest with you, a lot of people, a lot of employers, and now I do my own thing, but they love what police bring to the table.
[06:40]
C
Yeah, I think that's true. And I think you'll probably agree that one of the things you miss is the camaraderie. You miss the people. The job's a job. I mean, there are parts of the job that are funny. There are parts of the job that are sad, but you kind of roll with that. But the people you work with, day in, day out, you miss that interaction when you're not seeing them on a regular basis. Although a good friend of mine who was with lapd, he said, you'll find out when you ret. You probably have a handful of friends that you will stay in contact with, you will continue to see, you'll continue to have a relationship, and then you'll have 20 acquaintances that you may see at a reunion or something. So he's right. That handful of close friends, they have remained. And that part's been. That's gratifying. And I miss. I actually miss my old boss at Universal. He was the best boss I've ever worked for. And when he retired, my job became more onerous, shall we say, just because he was such a pleasure to work for.
[07:45]
B
So it's safe to say that during your police career, you experienced the highs and lows, and there's a different scope of command with police chiefs than there are sergeants and police officers. We could gussy up any way we want. But the reality is it's a different job.
[08:03]
C
Sure. And if you come up in the organization that's I think a big help because you know the nuances, you know what's important, you know what the organization stands for. And if you come in from the outside, you've got a learning curve. You've got to like when I went to New Mexico, coming from California, there's a little bit of suspect on all of the officers part. This new captain's coming in from California. What's he going to do? How's he going to change the department, that sort of thing. And which, you know, you got to step back and say, okay, this department's been here quite a while and they've been doing just fine. So they're doing things okay. The community seems to like them. So for me, I kind of was a fly on a wall there for the first while. You know, probably the smartest move because
[08:53]
B
what happens is a lot of rumors come across that, oh, we got a new boss coming in. We got and we got it here because he's got a clean house. We're dealing with Brian Brady. He's retired police chief from Nevada, California police department. When we return, we're talking about a couple in particular wife being abducted which led to arrest and then also a separate case involving a hostage barricade situation and an officer involved shooting. He's also a prolific author. His website's goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com his newest book is called Stillwaters run deep. This is law enforcement talk radio show. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back. Are you looking for a place to hear and be heard full of tips on how to improve your life? Join us on the clubhouse social audio app Wednesdays at 12 noon, 3pm Pacific for your confident life. It is always free. Get more details online at your confident life. That's your confident life. Online at your confident life.
[09:59]
C
Hey, it's your ceiling vent.
[10:01]
A
So I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed or does he just own a ladder?
[10:16]
C
Listen to your home go with thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes hire the Right.
[10:27]
A
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[11:04]
B
Turn our conversation with Brian Brady, retired police chief from Nevada, California Police Department, and he is also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com and his most recent book, Still Waters Run Deep. Still Waters Run Deep. Check it out, Brian. One of the things you're going to talk about is a couple being robbed that people thought the criminals obviously thought they had a lot of money. An abduction which quite often, you said earlier on, abductions usually don't pan out. It's usually a child custody thing. It's usually someone knows somebody. And until the advent of ATMs and bank machines.
[11:45]
C
That's true. That's true. Holding up people at the machine or taking somebody's ATM card and getting their PIN and then emptying their account.
[11:56]
B
Yeah. Or we also have calls about, you know, I think they call it jugging. Now, I'm not even sure they're slang anymore, but there's so many different terms. But they'll follow someone from bank and they'll abduct them. They'll make them go back to bank and make them go to withdraw a bunch of cash from the ATM machine. And they usually keep them hostage and release them afterwards. But that doesn't usually happen. The abduction thing, it doesn't usually happen. And it usually is not solved. Did you guys, before we get into details, did you guys wind up rescuing the victim and making an arrest?
[12:30]
C
We didn't arrest the victim. We arrested the three suspects.
[12:33]
B
Right, but you saved the victim and you arrested three people.
[12:35]
C
Good. Yeah. The victim was in her 60s. She a very, very nice woman, fortunately in good health to survive the whole ordeal. And when we were able to recover her and get her home, she was a fabulous witness. On top of everything else.
[12:55]
B
Well, you got the creme de la creme because that is not often the case. A lot of times these are lousy witnesses.
[13:03]
C
Yeah, she, she and her husband were, were really nice people. They, they had some money. They, but they weren't the Rockefellers. And they owned a tennis club. And these three clowns thought that because they owned a tennis club, that tennis is a money sport, supposedly. So they were going to rob them. So they broke into their house early in the morning and they pistol whipped the husband. And they took some things in the house, some jewelry, some cash, not a lot. And then they kidnapped the wife and duct taped her hands and her mouth. She was still in her nightgown. They let her put a coat on, it was a fur coat. And they threw her in the trunk of a car and drove off. I assume they were going to hold her for ransom. So we get the call, we get there, and the husband gives us a pretty good description of these guys and the car, it happens to be a Mercedes. So we go and start looking for the car, and we find it finally on a road not too far headed toward the East Bay. And that's going to be our assumption. So they obviously dumped the car and changed cars at that point. We went out and set up a roadblock at that particular location the next morning and held it during the hours that the kidnapping had taken place. And talked to everybody who drove that road in the hopes that somebody was a regular driver and would have noticed the car.
[14:41]
B
Right.
[14:42]
C
So it turns out there's an auto wrecking yard kind of over the hill from the tennis club and been there forever. Gentleman that owned it was known to everyone. And he got stopped and he said, yeah, I saw the car. It was an older model Thunderbird, and it had either no hood or a different color hood on the car. And he gave us a great description. We said, well, what made you pick up on this? He said, well, I thought maybe there were two guys or three guys. I didn't know, but I figured they were probably going to climb over the hill and steal parts for that car because it looked like it needed more parts. So he becomes a good witness, giving us this great description on the car. So later on the next day, we get a call from a storage facility in the South Bay down by Gilroy, below San Jose. And they tell us that they found this woman duct taped in one of the storage facilities. So we rushed down there, and Gilroy Police Department is obviously on the scene. They take her to the hospital, and they do a good job preserving evidence and all of that. So we set up surveillance on the storage facility to see if these guys will come back to pick her up. Because obviously they're not going to get any ransom without the victim. So we were sitting on the Story. Gilroy did a great job. They sat on the story. FBI was involved. They sat on it. But some local newspaper guy saw the victim at the hospital and kind of put two and two together. So he ran a story and blew the surveillance. We were. We were back to square one. And so we talked to the media. We made. I made a point of talking to the media on a regular basis. We scheduled like press conferences every four hours and on the first 24. And then after that, we backed them off. But I talked to the media and said, you know, tell me what time works for you guys, etc. Because I know that the print media has a really hard deadline, right? TV media has got a quarter million dollar satellite truck they can broadcast anytime, any place, and radio is recording it, and they can edit it and plug it in anywhere they want to, right? So the people who are really on a deadline are the print media. So we agreed that we would do our press releases to correspond with the print media's deadline. And the TV and radio people said that was fine. So after one of our press conferences, TV reporter comes in. Can I talk to you? So he comes to my office. I said, sure. He says, well, I talked to my editor and we got a tip. And my editor said, I needn't. We can't sit on this. We have to share it. So they did. And it was a woman down the peninsula, which is below San Francisco, fairly affluent neighborhood, who saw the car, or what she believed to be the car parked across the street at her neighbor's house. So we talked with her and said, well, why does the car stick in your mind? She goes, well, the car didn't fit the neighborhood. It was just, it was older, it had an odd colored hood. And so that. Well, okay, that's great. How do you know it was that day? She goes, well, I wrote it on my calendar. I said, great. What did you happen to wrote the license number?
[18:03]
B
Oh, my goodness. You're kidding me.
[18:06]
C
No, no. They got neighborhood Watch. You know, this woman was fabulous. So we find out, these guys get the car. Well, it turns out that they were there to meet the rest of the crew that worked for a company that resurfaced tennis courts. And they were going to resurface the tennis court as a neighbor's house. When we go back, sure enough, the same company had resurfaced the tennis courts at the club where the woman had been abducted. So we now have some names. We go to the company, we get a list of employees, we run them through dmv we get photographs. We show the photographs to the victim. She picks two and then the third guy was the driver who was not at the house. So she didn't see him. But that's a long story too. But we ultimately catch him. But she's great. The husband picks him. We get arrest warrants, we get a search warrant for the house. We go hit the house and we captured the two. And the third guy's right there too. So we pick him up.
[19:08]
B
And by the way, that is really, that's great police work, number one. But number two, that's highly unusual that they, and I'm sure you knew this, that it's highly unusual to get the bad guys. We're doing Brian Brady. He's retired police chief from Nevada, California Police Department. He's also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com and his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep. This is a law enforcement talk radio show. We'll take a short break. I promise you. We'll be right back. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Look for law enforcement talk radio show and podcast on YouTube.com and be sure to subscribe like everything we do. It is free. Look for and subscribe to law enforcement talk radio show and podcast on YouTube for great police videos and episodes of the podcast.
[20:02]
A
Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
[20:31]
B
Meet Keith loving dad, board game champ, bus driving pro.
[20:36]
D
I drive 65,000 miles in my bus each year. If people knew what I know, lives could be saved. Like how they are something things I simply can't see on my route. The other day a car tried to sneak past me and ends up right in my blind spot. I turn slowly, so accidentally avoided. But no car should be in the blind spot for a 40,000 pound bus.
[20:55]
B
It's our roads.
[20:56]
D
It's our safety.
[20:57]
B
Visit www.sharetheroadsafely.gov. Current conversation with Brian Brady is a repeat guest. He was on the law enforcement from talk radio show a long, long time ago. He's retired police chief from the Nevada, California Police Department, the San Francisco Bay area. And he is also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com and his most recent book is Still Waters Run Deep. You're talking about this kidnapping and you got the woman, you rescued her and you wound up getting positive IDs. And you mentioned some forensics. Very quickly, was forensics involved in this at all?
[21:43]
C
Tremendous, because of the size of our department and most departments that are medium sized, 100, you know, officers. So you've got, you can't afford a lab. I mean, it's just way too expensive. So you use the state facility to do your forensics. And we did that. So the state sent down a forensics team from their office, regional office, and they did prints, DNA, photographs. I mean, they did a really, really nice job. And we' used them before, so I was very comfortable with them. As a matter of fact, we used to get the same technicians. So we served the warrant, we recovered the car. Well, they got into the trunk of the car and they vacuumed it and they found hairs from the fur coat that the woman had been wearing. They, they went in and we found a roll of duct tape in the garage. And they matched the duct tape. I said, gilroy PD did a good job when they cut the tape off or they saved the ends. So we were able to match the end of the duct tape from the role in the garage where the suspects lived with the tape that was on her hands. So I still remember in court the forensics technician taking the stand with a 2 foot by 3 foot blow up of the duct tape and then talking about the coat. It happened to be an odd, I think it was a lynx coat. And there was only a handful of lynx coats that had been sold in the us period. And so that made the hairs really different. But they were able to match them right up to that co. So he testified and the defendants caught the plea. Right. We never, never finished the trial.
[23:20]
B
So what was the outcome? Were they sentenced to the.
[23:23]
C
They took a plea, 15 to life.
[23:26]
B
That's no joke. That's a, that's a great outcome. She's okay, the husband's okay. And they went to jail.
[23:32]
C
Yeah. And that's a significant, that's a significant sentence for a plea.
[23:36]
B
Yeah, it is really. And here's the thing, and I know you may not want to comment on this, but in particular in that state, but in Maryland, they did the same thing. We had repeat violent offenders that Were constantly released and constantly back on the street. And they had 15, 17, 18 priors, multiple convictions. We're talking about violent crimes. And guess what? They still commit violent crimes.
[23:59]
C
Yeah, that does happen. There's no question. And these guys didn't have a lengthy history. This really seemed like three guys were probably sitting around having a cocktail and decided, hey, we'll give this a good rich quick came, nobody gets hurt, we make some money, we move on. It's. It obviously didn't work out that way, but. And then we had. The FBI was involved too. I mean, right. Our, our chief at the time called the bureau right off the bat. Well, I mean, I was not happy with that initially because we were just starting to unravel things and it was just one more, you know, one more cook in the kitchen. So. But they showed up with, we couldn't match them on technology. They showed up with tape recording equipment and stuff to anticipate the ransom call, which we couldn't have done without them. Their tech people are just fabulous. They showed up with everything that was current and modern and wonderful.
[24:56]
B
You guys did a great job on that. One part of your career was spent in Farmington, New Mexico as a police captain. And you have a case that involved, that wound up being an officer involved shooting. That's by the way, back in my day, we didn't call them officer involved shootings. They're just shootings.
[25:10]
C
Yeah, well, in this particular case we had an individual with some mental health issues who I believe had inherited like a piece of property. And on that property he had put a mobile home. And then for some reason, unbeknownst to any of us, he had a mental break and decided to burn his home. Well, he did so. And then when the fire department got there, he was waiting for them with a big double headed ax.
[25:39]
B
Well, that's kind of what we call a clue when he set a fire in his own place. And number two, he's waiting with an ax. Yeah. Kind of lets you know he's not right.
[25:48]
C
So. And the fire department conceded the ground to him and backed up. So our people got there and the suspect went to a, like a tough shed that he also had on the property toward the back of the property and barricaded himself in there. Fire department then put the fire on the trailer. So now we have this individual in there with an ax barricaded. So we felt pretty comfortable that an ax obviously is no match for a firearm, but he's going to get to get very close to you with that axe to hurt You. So we were coming up with some thinking outside the box of how can we get this guy out and in custody without anyone getting hurt? So we talked to the fire department, since they were there, and said, could we get a inch and a half or two inch line up by the shed, and then you can charge the line onto the. The fire engine, and we'll somehow or other get this guy to step outside and we'll just hit him with the blast from the fire hose, knock him over, take the ax away and hook him up. Sounds good and sound like a great plan and definitely thinking outside the box. I had great people on my staff there, and we were mulling all this over, and so we said, can you guys do that? And fire department said, we can supply the hose and the engine and the water, but we ain't going anywhere near that shed. So we'll. We'll teach you guys how to use the hose. So they gave us a, you know, tutorial on how to use a fire hose. And there's some rules to that. That thing will knock you down. You got to be prepared. So we were very prepared, and we coached the individual outside and got ready to hit him with the water. When he came out with a.45 instead
[27:34]
B
of an axe, that changes the entire scenario. When he came out armed with a gun compared to a knife or an axe or anything like that, it's a different way of handling it.
[27:46]
C
Absolutely. And you know, the water hose was going to be pretty useless because obviously our officer with the hose is going to be exposed, and so we can't have that. So you've got to go back to square one. He comes out, he goes in. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen these situations where it's going to drag on for a while. And we had a really good SWAT team. Our people were deployed, we had the area secured. You know, the old time is on your side. We can wait this guy out. He's going to get tired of doing this sooner or later and give up. And that's usually what happens, right? I mean, most situations, you negotiate a successful resolution. And we had done this before, and the people on the team and the negotiators were really talented. They all well trained and had a great success. Great successes. As a matter of fact, they didn't have any that weren't successful until this particular day. So at some point, again, I have no idea what's going on in this guy's head at the time he comes out and begins to walk around with the.45 and our people are holding their position. We're just hoping he'll go back in. And at some point he either sees or anticipates or he's looking for an escape route. He goes right at one of our SWAT officers and then raises the gun to fire at the officer and the officer fires in self defense. So sadly, the suspect was killed. And that was one of the first, to my knowledge, the first one that the team had ever lost where they weren't able to negotiate their way through it and make a no injury capture.
[29:21]
B
And that goes contrary to what a lot of people believe. Number one, this is. What year was this when you had this happen?
[29:28]
C
This would have been in probably about 1980, 81.
[29:32]
B
So one of the things that kind of rankles, gets on my nerves is they talk about de escalation. We hear it in the media all the time. The police don't need better training. De escalation. We were doing that de escalation thing before was even thought of.
[29:47]
C
I agree. And I thought our people on my staff coming up with that fire hose idea, I thought that was fantastic. It was way outside the box. Yeah, no one's going to get hurt. We're going to be able to resolve this successfully. And like I, we'd done it before successfully. And you, you brought up a good point. You know, LAPD's probably got one of the older SWAT teams in the country and they're, they're, they're famous, they're in books and on TV, etc. Etc. And you know, they're sometimes portrayed as killers. What people don't realize LAPD was on their 125th call out before they fired a shot.
[30:22]
B
That's the thing. We're taking a short break on that note. And by the way, they don't talk about all the successful things in the media because that doesn't get attention. They talk about they're not sexy and they talk about things. The old saying we have is that bleeds. It leads. We're talking about Brian Brady, retired police chief of Nevada, California Police Department, prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com is goldengatetales.Com his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep. This law enforcement talk radio show, we're taking a short break. I promise you we'll be right back.
[30:55]
A
Someone asked, what's the catch? What's the cost? There is no cost for anything on the law enforcement talk radio show and podcast website. Letradio.com letradio.com Again, that's letradio.com.
[31:17]
B
Current conversation with Brian Brady in California Brian has retired from the Nevada, California, Florida Police Department. He's police chief and he was also Farmington, New Mexico police captain, a couple other agencies as well, which I don't understand. But look, that's the way things are. It's a different world out there. He's also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com you can get more information about him his books@goldengatetails.com his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep, which we will talk about in a few moments. I want to return to the conversation about Farmington, New Mexico Police Department. And quite often we would have things and look as a patrol sergeant, these things were usually handled very quickly or the SWAT was called and it took a while. And at the SWAT they had other jobs in the department. It took a while for them to mobilize. It took a while for him to get up. It took a while to get information.
[32:10]
A
So Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
[32:40]
B
Meet Keith Loving dad board game champ Bus driving pro.
[32:44]
D
I drive 65,000 miles in my bus each. If people knew what I know, lives could be saved. Like how there are some things I simply can't see on my route. The other day a car tried to sneak past me and ends up right in my blind spot. I turn slowly so accident avoided. But no car should be in the blind spot or 40,000 pound bus. It's our roads, it's our safety.
[33:06]
B
Visit www.sharetherodesafely.gov it was usually a lengthy affair, but you're right, the vast majority of them and with just waiting the suspect out.
[33:17]
C
Yeah, there's you know, I had the good fortune to go through hostage negotiation training when I was on the job and Dr. Schlossberg, who's kind of the father of negotiating out of New York City, taught the class and you know, he opened with, you know, time is on your side.
[33:33]
B
That's right.
[33:33]
C
If you can keep, you keep talking. You keep them talking, you wear them down, they get tired and then eventually, you know, nobody wants this thing to go on any further, and it ends up. And so we were, as I said, we had deployed our people, we had the area secure, we had our plan B with the fire hose. So we were hunkered down. We were going to wake this guy up. It took 24 hours. It took 24 hours. We had the time and we had the resources.
[34:01]
B
And the reason why, Brian. I know the reason why, but why would you, as a police captain and the SWAT team and everybody else want to successfully end this in a peaceful manner?
[34:13]
C
Well, you know, that's. That's what we do. I mean, that's our job is to, you know, protect and serve, to use LAPD's model. But, you know, we want to resolve this thing. It was consensus that this person was probably having a mental health crisis. And, you know, for his actions of going after the firefighters, his actions of burning his own house, his actions of barricading himself in a shed, all those things, you know, would lead the. An average person to think there's a problem here. So we were looking for a way to fix this problem, take him into custody, get him to a mental health facility eventually, without anybody getting hurt. And it turned out, you know, he. He turned the page when he pulled a gun and decided to go after one of our people. So it was sad. And I can tell you from the debriefing afterwards, and of course, you're aware once what deploys, you have a lengthy debriefing afterwards, and you go over every single aspect. You go over video, you go over audio. You know, what could we have done differently? What do we do? Right? What do. And it was the worst debriefing. That room was quiet. They were so down and disappointed that they hadn't fixed it without an injury. And that was the first one for them. And they were devastated. And people don't understand that, but they truly were they fully expected to. To make this work, just like they had in the past.
[35:34]
B
It's much easier to paint the. I'm going to use this in this case as a perfect example. It's much easier to paint the SWAT officer as some sort of tyrant that wants to shoot people, is trigger happy, and it's the furthest thing from the truth.
[35:47]
C
Absolutely. That's why we have negotiators, and that's why we have negotiators assigned to the SWAT team. And they're an integral part of that operation. They're the first line the team deploys. They secure the area and set it up so the negotiator can do their thing and, and if all goes well, bad guy comes out, taken into custody, everybody goes home. And that's what we expect to happen. That's the goal and our expectation. But in this case it wasn't. And for the people on the team who had successfully done this in the past, that's how they thought this was going to end up. And it didn't. And it definitely affected all of them.
[36:23]
B
Well, one of the things is, and I'm going to go on my own experience a little bit, one of the things is you can prepare for the worst and you think you got everything covered, you're going to be okay. And then the worst happens and it turns out it's not okay. I was in four officer involved shootings in a little more than 10 years. The first two, I never returned a shot, never fired my weapon because I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. And I just, I couldn't tell you why to this day. But that officer probably had no other choice.
[36:50]
C
Oh, no. I mean, you have a person with a.45 caliber pistol, you know, raised and sighted in and approaching, he's now within 10ft of you. You have, your options are.
[37:03]
B
Yeah, there's not time for decision making and options is out the window. I do want to change a little bit because there's a big difference. And I think a lot of police are great storytellers because we have, we hear a lot of stories and we see a lot of stories, but it's a different thing. It takes a different set of disciplines, shall we say, to be an author and to put them in paper. But you've been doing that for a while now, haven't yet.
[37:30]
C
I have. And you're right, we have great stories and people tend to want to hear them. And if you can get them down on paper and make them interesting, I think they enjoy reading them. Probably the, the best was Joseph Wombach.
[37:49]
B
The main reason I went into police work, his, his novels and stories were, they, they hit me. It really did.
[37:57]
C
Well, he was, he was a prolific author. He was a good cop. He knew how to write. He had a degree in literature and so he, he had a head, he had a head start on most of us. He could actually write and his stories were great. And he, to this day, I think he's probably the most or the best descriptive writer I've ever encountered. His characters, after he got through telling you what they looked like, I could find that person in New York City on New Year's Eve. Times Square.
[38:28]
B
Yeah.
[38:28]
C
I mean, they are so. Viv. And that's. That's a remarkable talent. Remarkable talent. And, you know, you try and make your characters as interesting as possible. He just was a master. And the other thing was that Mamba could switch gears. He went from funny, poignant stories in fiction and then he went to the Onion Field, which was a true story.
[38:52]
B
It was horrible.
[38:53]
C
It was a tear jerker. And he wrote it beautifully. I mean, he. So to me, that's one of the things that made him such a wonderful author, was he could change gears and go to a whole different genre and do it well.
[39:06]
B
One of the things about him, and I would love to hear where you think you are in your writing journey compared to him is he was really good at character development. And that carried over into the movies. Versions of his books. They were like we thought they were should be. How do you think you rate in the character development aspect?
[39:27]
C
I think. I think compared to Wamba, I could sharpen his pencils. But there's a. I like my characters. I think my protagonists are likable and relatable. I think my bad guys are bad and you're going to root against them. And I think you'll enjoy the interaction between the inspectors. And I use a lot of different things, some of which, if you read it in Florida, it would be just a little repartee between two partners and it wouldn't be all that significant. It would be humorous, but it wouldn't have the same power as it does in San Francisco, where, if you're from the Bay Area and you know that these two inspectors went to competing high schools and they have this rivalry. They're partners and they do well together, but underneath is this simmering rivalry between the two schools and they take every opportunity to jab each other over, which
[40:26]
B
is very similar to real life.
[40:29]
C
Yeah. And that's. And that happens everywhere. And I think I said if people read it, they'll relate to it. But here it's a little more powerful in that they'll know the actual schools involved and that sort of thing. But I think that, as you said, character development, and you want the reader to like and relate to your character.
[40:49]
B
I think it's so important. How many books do you have now?
[40:54]
C
This is. There's four out and there's two more that are in the pipeline. One will be the fourth book in the, what we've ended up calling Fog City stories, which are the ones in San Francisco. And they'll be the same inspectors again. The same inspectors through all the San Francisco books and they stand alone. You can read any one of them by themselves, but if you read them in sequence, you'll see the relationships that develop between the people in the book. So that'll be book four there. And then after Still Waters I wrote in a different area, got out of the San Francisco and New Detectives and so far people have seems to have liked the book. So I'm kind of doing a rough outline of taking those same two detectives that I created for that book and trying to create a new story for them.
[41:47]
B
All this information can be attained. And by the way, can you be contacted your website goldengate.com sure.
[41:53]
C
There's a there's a contact piece at the back of the website and I check it and I will respond.
[41:58]
B
Well, Brian, number one, I want to thank you for your service and number two, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to talk about these things. Both very much appreciated.
[42:06]
C
Well, I'm more than willing and I appreciate you having me on. I hope the listeners enjoyed it.
[42:11]
B
I'd like to thank our guests for coming on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. The Law Enforcement Talk Radio show is the nationally syndicated weekly radio show broadcast on Numerous AM&FM radio stations across the country. We're always adding more affiliate stations. If you enjoyed the podcast version of the show, which is always free, please do me a favor and tell a friend or two or three. I'll be back in just a few days with another episode of Law Enforcement Talk Radio show and Podcast. Until then, this is John J. Wiley. See ya.
[42:46]
A
Grainger Knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
[43:16]
B
Meet Keith Loving Dad Board Game Champ
[43:19]
D
Bus Driving Pro I drive 65,000 miles in my bus each year. If people knew what I know, lives could be saved. Like how there are some things I simply can't see on my route. The other day a car tried to sneak past me and ends up right in my blind spot. I turned slowly so accident avoided, but no car should be be in the blind spot for £40,000 bus. It's our roads it's our safety.
[43:42]
B
Visit www.sharetheroad safely.gov if you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe.
[43:52]
C
It really does help the show to grow.
[43:54]
B
Thank you for listening.

Summary6 min read

Law Enforcement Talk: True Crime and Trauma Stories

Episode: Police Save Kidnapping Victim
Host: John "Jay" Wiley
Guest: Brian Brady, Retired Police Chief, Nevada, CA, Prolific Author
Date: August 2, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode is a compelling dive into two of the most intense true crime cases encountered by Retired Chief Brian Brady: a rare adult kidnapping and a hostage-barricade that ended in an officer-involved shooting. With his extensive experience—spanning over three decades in law enforcement and later corporate security—Brady offers listeners a rare behind-the-scenes look at complex investigations, the emotional toll of trauma for all involved, the camaraderie of police work, and the challenges and rewards of transitioning from policing to a second career as an author.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Brian Brady’s Policing Career

Timestamps: 03:05–05:18

Brady began his law enforcement career with the Berkeley Police Department before taking roles in Baldwin Park (East L.A.), Farmington (NM), and ultimately becoming chief in Nevada, CA.
He spent 35+ years in policing before transitioning to corporate security at NBC Universal and the SF Museum of Modern Art.
Reflects on missing camaraderie post-retirement:

“One of the things you miss is the camaraderie. … But the people you work with, day in, day out, you miss that interaction when you're not seeing them on a regular basis.” (06:40, C)
Transitioning out of law enforcement brings newfound routine and less stress:

“Now I get to sleep through the night. I appreciate that.” (04:32, C)

2. The Kidnapping Case: Investigation and Rescue

Timestamps: 11:04–19:08

The Crime

An affluent couple, owners of a tennis club, are targeted early one morning. The husband is pistol-whipped, the wife (in her 60s) is duct-taped and kidnapped, thrown into the trunk, and later abandoned in a storage facility.
Initial suspicion that the couple were wealthy proved only partially true; the motive stemmed from the suspects mistaking tennis for a "rich sport."

The Investigation

Fast mobilization: Husband provides descriptions; vehicle is found but then abandoned.
Witnesses play a crucial role—a local auto wrecker IDs a suspicious car (an old Thunderbird with a mismatched hood).
The breakthrough:

“She goes, well, the car didn't fit the neighborhood… What did you happen to wrote the license number?” (17:21, C)
Neighborhood Watch member took notes, including the license plate.

Tactical Response and Media Management

Surveillance planned at the storage facility but blown by a newspaper reporter, leading to a shift in strategy.
Brady coordinated with media, scheduling press releases with print deadlines in mind:

“Because I know that the print media has a really hard deadline… So we agreed we would do our press releases to correspond with print media's deadline.” (15:30, C)

Arrests and Outcome

Investigation traces suspects to a company resurfacing local tennis courts.
Victim and husband positively ID suspects from photo lineup.
All three suspects arrested in a coordinated raid.

3. Forensics in the Kidnapping Case

Timestamps: 21:43–23:35

State forensics team gathers physical evidence: fingerprints, DNA, fur coat fibers, duct tape match.
Dramatic courtroom moments:

“I still remember in court the forensics technician taking the stand with a 2 foot by 3 foot blow up of the duct tape and then talking about the coat…” (22:40, C)
Case resolved with all three perpetrators pleading out and receiving 15-to-life.
Notable: FBI involvement provided advanced technical capabilities for ransom call anticipation.

4. Hostage-Barricade and Officer-Involved Shooting: Farmington, NM

Timestamps: 25:10–36:23

Suspect with mental health issues sets own property on fire, arms himself with an axe, later a handgun, and barricades in a shed.
Police develop a creative, less-lethal plan: use a firehose to subdue suspect:

“I thought our people coming up with that fire hose idea… was fantastic. It was way outside the box.” (29:46, C)
Situation escalates when suspect emerges with a .45 handgun, forcing a fatal police response.
The team’s disappointment and trauma post-shooting:

“It was the worst debriefing… They were so down and disappointed that they hadn't fixed it without an injury… they were devastated.” (35:24, C)

5. The Truth About Police Use of Force and De-escalation

Timestamps: 29:20–36:23

Myth-busting media narratives about callous police and a lack of de-escalation:

“De-escalation… We were doing that before it was even thought of.” (29:32, B)
LAPD anecdote:

“LAPD was on their 125th call out before they fired a shot.” (30:22, C)
Emotional cost to SWAT—officers strive for peaceful outcomes and are deeply affected when they can’t achieve them.

6. Trauma and Life After Policing

Timestamps: 04:32–06:40; 36:23–37:02

Both host and guest discuss the challenges in transitioning to a new career and forming new identities post-policing.
Effects of police work injuries and the difficulty of finding purpose after forced retirement.

7. Police as Storytellers; Becoming a Crime Author

Timestamps: 37:29–41:47

Inspiration from Joseph Wambaugh and the tradition of police officers as narrative storytellers.
Brady’s writing process and character development:

“My protagonists are likable and relatable. I think my bad guys are bad and you're going to root against them.” (39:27, C)
Bay Area/local details in his crime series make the stories uniquely resonant for native readers.
New and upcoming books teased; interaction with readers via his website encouraged.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

On the rarity of true kidnappings:
“A lot of times it’s a child and… more often than not it’s a parental abduction as opposed to a real kidnapping. But you have to treat them all the same.” (02:09, C)
On teamwork and witness cooperation:
“You got the creme de la creme because that is not often the case. A lot of times these are lousy witnesses.” (12:55, B)
On citizen vigilance:
“Neighborhood Watch. You know, this woman was fabulous.” (18:05, C)
On post-shooting trauma for police:
“That room was quiet. They were so down and disappointed that they hadn't fixed it without an injury. And that was the first one for them. And they were devastated.” (35:34, C)
On the goal of policing:
“Our job is to protect and serve… we want to resolve this thing. It was consensus that this person was probably having a mental health crisis… We were looking for a way to fix this problem, take him into custody… without anybody getting hurt.” (34:13, C)
On the transition to writing:
“If you can get [stories] down on paper and make them interesting, I think they enjoy reading them.” (37:29, C)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment Description | |---------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:05 | Brian Brady’s Policing Career Summary | | 11:04 | Introduction to the Kidnapping Case | | 13:03 | Robbery and Kidnapping Details | | 14:41 | Witnesses and Critical Evidence Surface | | 17:21 | Neighborhood Watch Member’s License Plate Note | | 19:08 | Apprehension of Suspects | | 21:43 | Forensics Team Involvement and Case Resolution | | 25:10 | New Mexico Hostage-Barricade Case Begins | | 29:20 | Shooting Resolution and Emotional Aftermath | | 33:17 | Hostage Negotiation Techniques | | 36:23 | SWAT Trauma, Debriefing, and Misconceptions in the Media | | 37:29 | Discussing Storytelling and Becoming a Crime Author | | 41:47 | Contact and Book Information |

Additional Information

Guest website: goldengatetales.com
Latest book: Still Waters Run Deep
Contact: Via website’s contact form
Host’s message: The Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show is on numerous AM/FM stations; podcast is always free and listeners are encouraged to subscribe and share.

Overall Tone:
Authentic, conversational, and insightful—with honest discussion of police work’s stresses and satisfactions, a focus on the nuances of true crime, trauma, and recovery, and a narrative style that alternates between reflective and engaging storytelling.

Loading summary

Transcript101 lines

[00:00]
A
If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com sleep number to a good life sleep.
[00:31]
B
He's a retired police chief from the Nevada California Police Department, also a prolific author. He's here to talk about a peculiar case where an ordinary couple was kidnapped which led the arrest of three. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guest talking about their experiences, their realities of investigating crimes. Police plus those who've experienced horrendous trauma. Police, first responders, military and victims of crime share their stories. Hi, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website, letradio.com and also like us on Facebook, search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. Joining us on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show from California we have Brian Brady, repeat guest. He was on the show a long time ago and he's had a long, lengthy police career where he retired hired as a police chief from Nevada California Police Department. He's also a prolific author. He's written multiple books. You can get more details about all of his books@goldengatetails.com that's goldengatetails.com his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep. Brian, thanks for your service and thanks for talking about this on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show. Very much appreciate it.
[01:51]
C
Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
[01:53]
B
It's good to have you back. We're going to talk about something that, you know, I look back on my police career that I handled pretty much everything. But one thing I did not handle was kidnapping or what we call at least in Maryland abductions, you had that quite that was very rare.
[02:10]
C
Yeah, I agree with you. It's, it's an unusual case and a lot of times it's a child and by the time you unravel it, more often than not it's a parental abduction as opposed to a real kidnapping. But you have to treat them all the same.
[02:28]
B
You do.
[02:29]
C
And so yeah, you don't want to be somebody who poo poos the initial report. Then you find out the child was actually abducted by some serial Killer. So you pour the time and effort into it. In this case, it was an older person who was abducted. And so the case was a little bit different than your child. Grab.
[02:51]
B
Well, before we go into details of that, you retired as a police chief very quickly. When did you start your career? Where did you go? Because if my memory is correct, you served in a lot of different agencies in different rules than we have in Maryland.
[03:06]
C
Well, I worked in two different states, primarily California. I'm from San Francisco. I was born and raised. So I started my career with Berkeley and spent nine years with Berkeley and then took a open competitive exam to be lieutenant down in East LA and went to work in city of Baldwin Park. About 85,000 people in East LA, stayed there about two years and then took a captain's test for Farmington, New Mexico and went out there for four years, took another captain's test for Nevada, came back to California in the Bay Area. And then after 10 years, I was appointed to police chief and served 12 years as police chief.
[03:49]
B
You've had a long career.
[03:52]
C
It is a little over 35 years. And then I left law enforcement and went into the private side. And I spent the next 12 years working executive level corporate security. I spent 10 years at NBC Universal in Los Angeles and then another year at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where we were putting together the new museum.
[04:11]
B
Well, truth be told, and this is where I want you to be truthful. Look, I love my police career. I really do. However, radio is far less stressful. It's a lot more work. It's a lot different work, but I'm a happier guy. Are you happier doing what you're doing now, being an author and doing what you're doing?
[04:32]
C
I don't know if I'm happier. I mean, I like both. I think they both had ups and downs. The thing that I don't have right now that I did have for most of my career is being on call 24 7. When you're the police chief, you know you're on call when something bad happens, you get notified. So it doesn't make any difference what time it is. And when you're with a company like NBC or with Universal Studios, you're 24 hour. Because we have productions all over the world frequently, you know, they don't think about time differences when they call you about a problem. So I didn't. I mean, I accepted that as part of the job. But now I get to sleep through the night. I appreciate that.
[05:19]
B
It is nice. And how about having the weekends and holidays off.
[05:23]
C
Yeah, that's. That's. That's a nice break, the studio, because we also have, as part of our little empire down there, we have Universal Studios Hollywood, which is the theme park. So the theme park, you know, was a 20. Well, not 24 7, because it did close at midnight. But it was a busy place, you know, seven days a week. So you frequently had, you know, as you pointed out, the weekend calls.
[05:55]
B
Well, one thing, I look back, and there's a lot I miss about policing. And my career was different from yours. I got promoted sergeant, and I got hurt and retired very young. I was 33 when I was retired, so I didn't want to leave as early as I did. But that's. That's the hand I was dealt. And I'm not pun intended, because it's a hand injury. And if you look very closely, you'll see it's my right hand and multiple steel plates put in and multiple surgeries and all this stuff. And I thought I sprained my wrist and I was gone. But it took a while to find my new career. And radio has been something that, I'll be honest with you, a lot of people, a lot of employers, and now I do my own thing, but they love what police bring to the table.
[06:40]
C
Yeah, I think that's true. And I think you'll probably agree that one of the things you miss is the camaraderie. You miss the people. The job's a job. I mean, there are parts of the job that are funny. There are parts of the job that are sad, but you kind of roll with that. But the people you work with, day in, day out, you miss that interaction when you're not seeing them on a regular basis. Although a good friend of mine who was with lapd, he said, you'll find out when you ret. You probably have a handful of friends that you will stay in contact with, you will continue to see, you'll continue to have a relationship, and then you'll have 20 acquaintances that you may see at a reunion or something. So he's right. That handful of close friends, they have remained. And that part's been. That's gratifying. And I miss. I actually miss my old boss at Universal. He was the best boss I've ever worked for. And when he retired, my job became more onerous, shall we say, just because he was such a pleasure to work for.
[07:45]
B
So it's safe to say that during your police career, you experienced the highs and lows, and there's a different scope of command with police chiefs than there are sergeants and police officers. We could gussy up any way we want. But the reality is it's a different job.
[08:03]
C
Sure. And if you come up in the organization that's I think a big help because you know the nuances, you know what's important, you know what the organization stands for. And if you come in from the outside, you've got a learning curve. You've got to like when I went to New Mexico, coming from California, there's a little bit of suspect on all of the officers part. This new captain's coming in from California. What's he going to do? How's he going to change the department, that sort of thing. And which, you know, you got to step back and say, okay, this department's been here quite a while and they've been doing just fine. So they're doing things okay. The community seems to like them. So for me, I kind of was a fly on a wall there for the first while. You know, probably the smartest move because
[08:53]
B
what happens is a lot of rumors come across that, oh, we got a new boss coming in. We got and we got it here because he's got a clean house. We're dealing with Brian Brady. He's retired police chief from Nevada, California police department. When we return, we're talking about a couple in particular wife being abducted which led to arrest and then also a separate case involving a hostage barricade situation and an officer involved shooting. He's also a prolific author. His website's goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com his newest book is called Stillwaters run deep. This is law enforcement talk radio show. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back. Are you looking for a place to hear and be heard full of tips on how to improve your life? Join us on the clubhouse social audio app Wednesdays at 12 noon, 3pm Pacific for your confident life. It is always free. Get more details online at your confident life. That's your confident life. Online at your confident life.
[09:59]
C
Hey, it's your ceiling vent.
[10:01]
A
So I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed or does he just own a ladder?
[10:16]
C
Listen to your home go with thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes hire the Right.
[10:27]
A
Pro today. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done,
[11:04]
B
Turn our conversation with Brian Brady, retired police chief from Nevada, California Police Department, and he is also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com and his most recent book, Still Waters Run Deep. Still Waters Run Deep. Check it out, Brian. One of the things you're going to talk about is a couple being robbed that people thought the criminals obviously thought they had a lot of money. An abduction which quite often, you said earlier on, abductions usually don't pan out. It's usually a child custody thing. It's usually someone knows somebody. And until the advent of ATMs and bank machines.
[11:45]
C
That's true. That's true. Holding up people at the machine or taking somebody's ATM card and getting their PIN and then emptying their account.
[11:56]
B
Yeah. Or we also have calls about, you know, I think they call it jugging. Now, I'm not even sure they're slang anymore, but there's so many different terms. But they'll follow someone from bank and they'll abduct them. They'll make them go back to bank and make them go to withdraw a bunch of cash from the ATM machine. And they usually keep them hostage and release them afterwards. But that doesn't usually happen. The abduction thing, it doesn't usually happen. And it usually is not solved. Did you guys, before we get into details, did you guys wind up rescuing the victim and making an arrest?
[12:30]
C
We didn't arrest the victim. We arrested the three suspects.
[12:33]
B
Right, but you saved the victim and you arrested three people.
[12:35]
C
Good. Yeah. The victim was in her 60s. She a very, very nice woman, fortunately in good health to survive the whole ordeal. And when we were able to recover her and get her home, she was a fabulous witness. On top of everything else.
[12:55]
B
Well, you got the creme de la creme because that is not often the case. A lot of times these are lousy witnesses.
[13:03]
C
Yeah, she, she and her husband were, were really nice people. They, they had some money. They, but they weren't the Rockefellers. And they owned a tennis club. And these three clowns thought that because they owned a tennis club, that tennis is a money sport, supposedly. So they were going to rob them. So they broke into their house early in the morning and they pistol whipped the husband. And they took some things in the house, some jewelry, some cash, not a lot. And then they kidnapped the wife and duct taped her hands and her mouth. She was still in her nightgown. They let her put a coat on, it was a fur coat. And they threw her in the trunk of a car and drove off. I assume they were going to hold her for ransom. So we get the call, we get there, and the husband gives us a pretty good description of these guys and the car, it happens to be a Mercedes. So we go and start looking for the car, and we find it finally on a road not too far headed toward the East Bay. And that's going to be our assumption. So they obviously dumped the car and changed cars at that point. We went out and set up a roadblock at that particular location the next morning and held it during the hours that the kidnapping had taken place. And talked to everybody who drove that road in the hopes that somebody was a regular driver and would have noticed the car.
[14:41]
B
Right.
[14:42]
C
So it turns out there's an auto wrecking yard kind of over the hill from the tennis club and been there forever. Gentleman that owned it was known to everyone. And he got stopped and he said, yeah, I saw the car. It was an older model Thunderbird, and it had either no hood or a different color hood on the car. And he gave us a great description. We said, well, what made you pick up on this? He said, well, I thought maybe there were two guys or three guys. I didn't know, but I figured they were probably going to climb over the hill and steal parts for that car because it looked like it needed more parts. So he becomes a good witness, giving us this great description on the car. So later on the next day, we get a call from a storage facility in the South Bay down by Gilroy, below San Jose. And they tell us that they found this woman duct taped in one of the storage facilities. So we rushed down there, and Gilroy Police Department is obviously on the scene. They take her to the hospital, and they do a good job preserving evidence and all of that. So we set up surveillance on the storage facility to see if these guys will come back to pick her up. Because obviously they're not going to get any ransom without the victim. So we were sitting on the Story. Gilroy did a great job. They sat on the story. FBI was involved. They sat on it. But some local newspaper guy saw the victim at the hospital and kind of put two and two together. So he ran a story and blew the surveillance. We were. We were back to square one. And so we talked to the media. We made. I made a point of talking to the media on a regular basis. We scheduled like press conferences every four hours and on the first 24. And then after that, we backed them off. But I talked to the media and said, you know, tell me what time works for you guys, etc. Because I know that the print media has a really hard deadline, right? TV media has got a quarter million dollar satellite truck they can broadcast anytime, any place, and radio is recording it, and they can edit it and plug it in anywhere they want to, right? So the people who are really on a deadline are the print media. So we agreed that we would do our press releases to correspond with the print media's deadline. And the TV and radio people said that was fine. So after one of our press conferences, TV reporter comes in. Can I talk to you? So he comes to my office. I said, sure. He says, well, I talked to my editor and we got a tip. And my editor said, I needn't. We can't sit on this. We have to share it. So they did. And it was a woman down the peninsula, which is below San Francisco, fairly affluent neighborhood, who saw the car, or what she believed to be the car parked across the street at her neighbor's house. So we talked with her and said, well, why does the car stick in your mind? She goes, well, the car didn't fit the neighborhood. It was just, it was older, it had an odd colored hood. And so that. Well, okay, that's great. How do you know it was that day? She goes, well, I wrote it on my calendar. I said, great. What did you happen to wrote the license number?
[18:03]
B
Oh, my goodness. You're kidding me.
[18:06]
C
No, no. They got neighborhood Watch. You know, this woman was fabulous. So we find out, these guys get the car. Well, it turns out that they were there to meet the rest of the crew that worked for a company that resurfaced tennis courts. And they were going to resurface the tennis court as a neighbor's house. When we go back, sure enough, the same company had resurfaced the tennis courts at the club where the woman had been abducted. So we now have some names. We go to the company, we get a list of employees, we run them through dmv we get photographs. We show the photographs to the victim. She picks two and then the third guy was the driver who was not at the house. So she didn't see him. But that's a long story too. But we ultimately catch him. But she's great. The husband picks him. We get arrest warrants, we get a search warrant for the house. We go hit the house and we captured the two. And the third guy's right there too. So we pick him up.
[19:08]
B
And by the way, that is really, that's great police work, number one. But number two, that's highly unusual that they, and I'm sure you knew this, that it's highly unusual to get the bad guys. We're doing Brian Brady. He's retired police chief from Nevada, California Police Department. He's also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com and his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep. This is a law enforcement talk radio show. We'll take a short break. I promise you. We'll be right back. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Look for law enforcement talk radio show and podcast on YouTube.com and be sure to subscribe like everything we do. It is free. Look for and subscribe to law enforcement talk radio show and podcast on YouTube for great police videos and episodes of the podcast.
[20:02]
A
Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
[20:31]
B
Meet Keith loving dad, board game champ, bus driving pro.
[20:36]
D
I drive 65,000 miles in my bus each year. If people knew what I know, lives could be saved. Like how they are something things I simply can't see on my route. The other day a car tried to sneak past me and ends up right in my blind spot. I turn slowly, so accidentally avoided. But no car should be in the blind spot for a 40,000 pound bus.
[20:55]
B
It's our roads.
[20:56]
D
It's our safety.
[20:57]
B
Visit www.sharetheroadsafely.gov. Current conversation with Brian Brady is a repeat guest. He was on the law enforcement from talk radio show a long, long time ago. He's retired police chief from the Nevada, California Police Department, the San Francisco Bay area. And he is also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com that's goldengatetails.com and his most recent book is Still Waters Run Deep. You're talking about this kidnapping and you got the woman, you rescued her and you wound up getting positive IDs. And you mentioned some forensics. Very quickly, was forensics involved in this at all?
[21:43]
C
Tremendous, because of the size of our department and most departments that are medium sized, 100, you know, officers. So you've got, you can't afford a lab. I mean, it's just way too expensive. So you use the state facility to do your forensics. And we did that. So the state sent down a forensics team from their office, regional office, and they did prints, DNA, photographs. I mean, they did a really, really nice job. And we' used them before, so I was very comfortable with them. As a matter of fact, we used to get the same technicians. So we served the warrant, we recovered the car. Well, they got into the trunk of the car and they vacuumed it and they found hairs from the fur coat that the woman had been wearing. They, they went in and we found a roll of duct tape in the garage. And they matched the duct tape. I said, gilroy PD did a good job when they cut the tape off or they saved the ends. So we were able to match the end of the duct tape from the role in the garage where the suspects lived with the tape that was on her hands. So I still remember in court the forensics technician taking the stand with a 2 foot by 3 foot blow up of the duct tape and then talking about the coat. It happened to be an odd, I think it was a lynx coat. And there was only a handful of lynx coats that had been sold in the us period. And so that made the hairs really different. But they were able to match them right up to that co. So he testified and the defendants caught the plea. Right. We never, never finished the trial.
[23:20]
B
So what was the outcome? Were they sentenced to the.
[23:23]
C
They took a plea, 15 to life.
[23:26]
B
That's no joke. That's a, that's a great outcome. She's okay, the husband's okay. And they went to jail.
[23:32]
C
Yeah. And that's a significant, that's a significant sentence for a plea.
[23:36]
B
Yeah, it is really. And here's the thing, and I know you may not want to comment on this, but in particular in that state, but in Maryland, they did the same thing. We had repeat violent offenders that Were constantly released and constantly back on the street. And they had 15, 17, 18 priors, multiple convictions. We're talking about violent crimes. And guess what? They still commit violent crimes.
[23:59]
C
Yeah, that does happen. There's no question. And these guys didn't have a lengthy history. This really seemed like three guys were probably sitting around having a cocktail and decided, hey, we'll give this a good rich quick came, nobody gets hurt, we make some money, we move on. It's. It obviously didn't work out that way, but. And then we had. The FBI was involved too. I mean, right. Our, our chief at the time called the bureau right off the bat. Well, I mean, I was not happy with that initially because we were just starting to unravel things and it was just one more, you know, one more cook in the kitchen. So. But they showed up with, we couldn't match them on technology. They showed up with tape recording equipment and stuff to anticipate the ransom call, which we couldn't have done without them. Their tech people are just fabulous. They showed up with everything that was current and modern and wonderful.
[24:56]
B
You guys did a great job on that. One part of your career was spent in Farmington, New Mexico as a police captain. And you have a case that involved, that wound up being an officer involved shooting. That's by the way, back in my day, we didn't call them officer involved shootings. They're just shootings.
[25:10]
C
Yeah, well, in this particular case we had an individual with some mental health issues who I believe had inherited like a piece of property. And on that property he had put a mobile home. And then for some reason, unbeknownst to any of us, he had a mental break and decided to burn his home. Well, he did so. And then when the fire department got there, he was waiting for them with a big double headed ax.
[25:39]
B
Well, that's kind of what we call a clue when he set a fire in his own place. And number two, he's waiting with an ax. Yeah. Kind of lets you know he's not right.
[25:48]
C
So. And the fire department conceded the ground to him and backed up. So our people got there and the suspect went to a, like a tough shed that he also had on the property toward the back of the property and barricaded himself in there. Fire department then put the fire on the trailer. So now we have this individual in there with an ax barricaded. So we felt pretty comfortable that an ax obviously is no match for a firearm, but he's going to get to get very close to you with that axe to hurt You. So we were coming up with some thinking outside the box of how can we get this guy out and in custody without anyone getting hurt? So we talked to the fire department, since they were there, and said, could we get a inch and a half or two inch line up by the shed, and then you can charge the line onto the. The fire engine, and we'll somehow or other get this guy to step outside and we'll just hit him with the blast from the fire hose, knock him over, take the ax away and hook him up. Sounds good and sound like a great plan and definitely thinking outside the box. I had great people on my staff there, and we were mulling all this over, and so we said, can you guys do that? And fire department said, we can supply the hose and the engine and the water, but we ain't going anywhere near that shed. So we'll. We'll teach you guys how to use the hose. So they gave us a, you know, tutorial on how to use a fire hose. And there's some rules to that. That thing will knock you down. You got to be prepared. So we were very prepared, and we coached the individual outside and got ready to hit him with the water. When he came out with a.45 instead
[27:34]
B
of an axe, that changes the entire scenario. When he came out armed with a gun compared to a knife or an axe or anything like that, it's a different way of handling it.
[27:46]
C
Absolutely. And you know, the water hose was going to be pretty useless because obviously our officer with the hose is going to be exposed, and so we can't have that. So you've got to go back to square one. He comes out, he goes in. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen these situations where it's going to drag on for a while. And we had a really good SWAT team. Our people were deployed, we had the area secured. You know, the old time is on your side. We can wait this guy out. He's going to get tired of doing this sooner or later and give up. And that's usually what happens, right? I mean, most situations, you negotiate a successful resolution. And we had done this before, and the people on the team and the negotiators were really talented. They all well trained and had a great success. Great successes. As a matter of fact, they didn't have any that weren't successful until this particular day. So at some point, again, I have no idea what's going on in this guy's head at the time he comes out and begins to walk around with the.45 and our people are holding their position. We're just hoping he'll go back in. And at some point he either sees or anticipates or he's looking for an escape route. He goes right at one of our SWAT officers and then raises the gun to fire at the officer and the officer fires in self defense. So sadly, the suspect was killed. And that was one of the first, to my knowledge, the first one that the team had ever lost where they weren't able to negotiate their way through it and make a no injury capture.
[29:21]
B
And that goes contrary to what a lot of people believe. Number one, this is. What year was this when you had this happen?
[29:28]
C
This would have been in probably about 1980, 81.
[29:32]
B
So one of the things that kind of rankles, gets on my nerves is they talk about de escalation. We hear it in the media all the time. The police don't need better training. De escalation. We were doing that de escalation thing before was even thought of.
[29:47]
C
I agree. And I thought our people on my staff coming up with that fire hose idea, I thought that was fantastic. It was way outside the box. Yeah, no one's going to get hurt. We're going to be able to resolve this successfully. And like I, we'd done it before successfully. And you, you brought up a good point. You know, LAPD's probably got one of the older SWAT teams in the country and they're, they're, they're famous, they're in books and on TV, etc. Etc. And you know, they're sometimes portrayed as killers. What people don't realize LAPD was on their 125th call out before they fired a shot.
[30:22]
B
That's the thing. We're taking a short break on that note. And by the way, they don't talk about all the successful things in the media because that doesn't get attention. They talk about they're not sexy and they talk about things. The old saying we have is that bleeds. It leads. We're talking about Brian Brady, retired police chief of Nevada, California Police Department, prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com is goldengatetales.Com his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep. This law enforcement talk radio show, we're taking a short break. I promise you we'll be right back.
[30:55]
A
Someone asked, what's the catch? What's the cost? There is no cost for anything on the law enforcement talk radio show and podcast website. Letradio.com letradio.com Again, that's letradio.com.
[31:17]
B
Current conversation with Brian Brady in California Brian has retired from the Nevada, California, Florida Police Department. He's police chief and he was also Farmington, New Mexico police captain, a couple other agencies as well, which I don't understand. But look, that's the way things are. It's a different world out there. He's also a prolific author. His website is goldengatetales.com you can get more information about him his books@goldengatetails.com his most recent book is called Still Waters Run Deep, which we will talk about in a few moments. I want to return to the conversation about Farmington, New Mexico Police Department. And quite often we would have things and look as a patrol sergeant, these things were usually handled very quickly or the SWAT was called and it took a while. And at the SWAT they had other jobs in the department. It took a while for them to mobilize. It took a while for him to get up. It took a while to get information.
[32:10]
A
So Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
[32:40]
B
Meet Keith Loving dad board game champ Bus driving pro.
[32:44]
D
I drive 65,000 miles in my bus each. If people knew what I know, lives could be saved. Like how there are some things I simply can't see on my route. The other day a car tried to sneak past me and ends up right in my blind spot. I turn slowly so accident avoided. But no car should be in the blind spot or 40,000 pound bus. It's our roads, it's our safety.
[33:06]
B
Visit www.sharetherodesafely.gov it was usually a lengthy affair, but you're right, the vast majority of them and with just waiting the suspect out.
[33:17]
C
Yeah, there's you know, I had the good fortune to go through hostage negotiation training when I was on the job and Dr. Schlossberg, who's kind of the father of negotiating out of New York City, taught the class and you know, he opened with, you know, time is on your side.
[33:33]
B
That's right.
[33:33]
C
If you can keep, you keep talking. You keep them talking, you wear them down, they get tired and then eventually, you know, nobody wants this thing to go on any further, and it ends up. And so we were, as I said, we had deployed our people, we had the area secure, we had our plan B with the fire hose. So we were hunkered down. We were going to wake this guy up. It took 24 hours. It took 24 hours. We had the time and we had the resources.
[34:01]
B
And the reason why, Brian. I know the reason why, but why would you, as a police captain and the SWAT team and everybody else want to successfully end this in a peaceful manner?
[34:13]
C
Well, you know, that's. That's what we do. I mean, that's our job is to, you know, protect and serve, to use LAPD's model. But, you know, we want to resolve this thing. It was consensus that this person was probably having a mental health crisis. And, you know, for his actions of going after the firefighters, his actions of burning his own house, his actions of barricading himself in a shed, all those things, you know, would lead the. An average person to think there's a problem here. So we were looking for a way to fix this problem, take him into custody, get him to a mental health facility eventually, without anybody getting hurt. And it turned out, you know, he. He turned the page when he pulled a gun and decided to go after one of our people. So it was sad. And I can tell you from the debriefing afterwards, and of course, you're aware once what deploys, you have a lengthy debriefing afterwards, and you go over every single aspect. You go over video, you go over audio. You know, what could we have done differently? What do we do? Right? What do. And it was the worst debriefing. That room was quiet. They were so down and disappointed that they hadn't fixed it without an injury. And that was the first one for them. And they were devastated. And people don't understand that, but they truly were they fully expected to. To make this work, just like they had in the past.
[35:34]
B
It's much easier to paint the. I'm going to use this in this case as a perfect example. It's much easier to paint the SWAT officer as some sort of tyrant that wants to shoot people, is trigger happy, and it's the furthest thing from the truth.
[35:47]
C
Absolutely. That's why we have negotiators, and that's why we have negotiators assigned to the SWAT team. And they're an integral part of that operation. They're the first line the team deploys. They secure the area and set it up so the negotiator can do their thing and, and if all goes well, bad guy comes out, taken into custody, everybody goes home. And that's what we expect to happen. That's the goal and our expectation. But in this case it wasn't. And for the people on the team who had successfully done this in the past, that's how they thought this was going to end up. And it didn't. And it definitely affected all of them.
[36:23]
B
Well, one of the things is, and I'm going to go on my own experience a little bit, one of the things is you can prepare for the worst and you think you got everything covered, you're going to be okay. And then the worst happens and it turns out it's not okay. I was in four officer involved shootings in a little more than 10 years. The first two, I never returned a shot, never fired my weapon because I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. And I just, I couldn't tell you why to this day. But that officer probably had no other choice.
[36:50]
C
Oh, no. I mean, you have a person with a.45 caliber pistol, you know, raised and sighted in and approaching, he's now within 10ft of you. You have, your options are.
[37:03]
B
Yeah, there's not time for decision making and options is out the window. I do want to change a little bit because there's a big difference. And I think a lot of police are great storytellers because we have, we hear a lot of stories and we see a lot of stories, but it's a different thing. It takes a different set of disciplines, shall we say, to be an author and to put them in paper. But you've been doing that for a while now, haven't yet.
[37:30]
C
I have. And you're right, we have great stories and people tend to want to hear them. And if you can get them down on paper and make them interesting, I think they enjoy reading them. Probably the, the best was Joseph Wombach.
[37:49]
B
The main reason I went into police work, his, his novels and stories were, they, they hit me. It really did.
[37:57]
C
Well, he was, he was a prolific author. He was a good cop. He knew how to write. He had a degree in literature and so he, he had a head, he had a head start on most of us. He could actually write and his stories were great. And he, to this day, I think he's probably the most or the best descriptive writer I've ever encountered. His characters, after he got through telling you what they looked like, I could find that person in New York City on New Year's Eve. Times Square.
[38:28]
B
Yeah.
[38:28]
C
I mean, they are so. Viv. And that's. That's a remarkable talent. Remarkable talent. And, you know, you try and make your characters as interesting as possible. He just was a master. And the other thing was that Mamba could switch gears. He went from funny, poignant stories in fiction and then he went to the Onion Field, which was a true story.
[38:52]
B
It was horrible.
[38:53]
C
It was a tear jerker. And he wrote it beautifully. I mean, he. So to me, that's one of the things that made him such a wonderful author, was he could change gears and go to a whole different genre and do it well.
[39:06]
B
One of the things about him, and I would love to hear where you think you are in your writing journey compared to him is he was really good at character development. And that carried over into the movies. Versions of his books. They were like we thought they were should be. How do you think you rate in the character development aspect?
[39:27]
C
I think. I think compared to Wamba, I could sharpen his pencils. But there's a. I like my characters. I think my protagonists are likable and relatable. I think my bad guys are bad and you're going to root against them. And I think you'll enjoy the interaction between the inspectors. And I use a lot of different things, some of which, if you read it in Florida, it would be just a little repartee between two partners and it wouldn't be all that significant. It would be humorous, but it wouldn't have the same power as it does in San Francisco, where, if you're from the Bay Area and you know that these two inspectors went to competing high schools and they have this rivalry. They're partners and they do well together, but underneath is this simmering rivalry between the two schools and they take every opportunity to jab each other over, which
[40:26]
B
is very similar to real life.
[40:29]
C
Yeah. And that's. And that happens everywhere. And I think I said if people read it, they'll relate to it. But here it's a little more powerful in that they'll know the actual schools involved and that sort of thing. But I think that, as you said, character development, and you want the reader to like and relate to your character.
[40:49]
B
I think it's so important. How many books do you have now?
[40:54]
C
This is. There's four out and there's two more that are in the pipeline. One will be the fourth book in the, what we've ended up calling Fog City stories, which are the ones in San Francisco. And they'll be the same inspectors again. The same inspectors through all the San Francisco books and they stand alone. You can read any one of them by themselves, but if you read them in sequence, you'll see the relationships that develop between the people in the book. So that'll be book four there. And then after Still Waters I wrote in a different area, got out of the San Francisco and New Detectives and so far people have seems to have liked the book. So I'm kind of doing a rough outline of taking those same two detectives that I created for that book and trying to create a new story for them.
[41:47]
B
All this information can be attained. And by the way, can you be contacted your website goldengate.com sure.
[41:53]
C
There's a there's a contact piece at the back of the website and I check it and I will respond.
[41:58]
B
Well, Brian, number one, I want to thank you for your service and number two, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to talk about these things. Both very much appreciated.
[42:06]
C
Well, I'm more than willing and I appreciate you having me on. I hope the listeners enjoyed it.
[42:11]
B
I'd like to thank our guests for coming on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. The Law Enforcement Talk Radio show is the nationally syndicated weekly radio show broadcast on Numerous AM&FM radio stations across the country. We're always adding more affiliate stations. If you enjoyed the podcast version of the show, which is always free, please do me a favor and tell a friend or two or three. I'll be back in just a few days with another episode of Law Enforcement Talk Radio show and Podcast. Until then, this is John J. Wiley. See ya.
[42:46]
A
Grainger Knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
[43:16]
B
Meet Keith Loving Dad Board Game Champ
[43:19]
D
Bus Driving Pro I drive 65,000 miles in my bus each year. If people knew what I know, lives could be saved. Like how there are some things I simply can't see on my route. The other day a car tried to sneak past me and ends up right in my blind spot. I turned slowly so accident avoided, but no car should be be in the blind spot for £40,000 bus. It's our roads it's our safety.
[43:42]
B
Visit www.sharetheroad safely.gov if you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe.
[43:52]
C
It really does help the show to grow.
[43:54]
B
Thank you for listening.